


Complex

by NeQuittezPas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Cuthbert Sinclair/Henry Winchester, Dimension Travel, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I'm writing an epic here, Most shameless self-insert to date, Mutual Pining, Prophet!OC, Protective Sam Winchester, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Slow-ish burn, Time Travel Fix-It, like a medium burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 70,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeQuittezPas/pseuds/NeQuittezPas
Summary: Sam Winchester will do whatever it takes to save his brother from Hell. When all else fails, he tries a spell—and botches it.Cassandra Holmes awoke from uneasy dreams and found herself transported to a fictional universe.Cass wants to go home. Sam wants his brother back. Maybe, working together, they can both get what they want.
Relationships: Sam Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 133
Kudos: 291





	1. Sam Winchester?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very short introduction to what will eventually be a decently long story. I don't have an update schedule set up for this yet, but I hit 50,000 words in my first draft and figured I'd celebrate by posting the introduction. I hope you enjoy! Also, I apologize in advance for the bad Greek, which is a product of Google translate. It's the only time I use it, I promise.

Sam scrubbed his palms across tired eyes and looked at the ritual circle, then back at the page of the book. He'd done it right. He'd been meticulous, carefully tracing out the Greek words and symbols. Now, all that was left was to set the fire and speak the incantation.

His eyelids drooped shut as he picked up the book, but he shook himself awake. He couldn't rest. Not yet.

Everything else he had tried so far had failed. None of the rituals or spells had worked. None of the demons he'd managed to summon were willing to deal. But Sam was determined that he wouldn't rest, wouldn't stop until he'd saved his brother from Hell. It was going to happen somehow, eventually. It was just a matter of _when_ and _how._

Which brought him to this ritual: summoning a spirit which could see the future. If everything went right, then the spirit would tell him what he does in the future to get his brother back. And then, once he knew what he needed to do, Sam would do it.

He'd do anything, at this point.

Sam swayed to his feet, sluggish with exhaustion, fingers gripping the musty pages of the spell book. He took a deep breath, running his eyes over the unfamiliar words one last time and committing them to memory.

_Sas kaló, to pnévma tis Kassándras pou vlépei to méllon._

He set the book aside. He entered the circle, fishing a box of matches from his pocket and striding to the small pile of dry branches he'd arranged into a neat pile in the center of the circle. He struck a match, set it to the wood, and began.

"Sas kalo…" The fire engulfed the wood all at once, burning bright and even, and Sam drew his hands back sharply before they could be burned. The smoke was drifting up toward his eyes, making them feel even heavier than they had been before. He blinked hard and tried to remember the words to finish the spell. "Sas kalo to Kassándra pou vlépei to méllon."

Sam knew he'd got it wrong as soon as the words left his mouth. He'd missed a word or two, but now it was too late. The words had been spoken. If he'd done it properly, the smoke from the fire should have coalesced into the ghostly form of the spirit of a seer.

He had not done it properly.

Instead of generating any more smoke, the fire leaped unnaturally high, as tall as Sam himself. Sam stumbled back, watching the flames warily, and debated whether it was riskier to step out of the circle mid-ritual, or to remain inside the circle while the fire went crazy.

The flames writhed frantically. Sam had just decided to take the risk of breaking the circle when, suddenly, the flames shrank, coalescing into a blinding pinprick of light. Sam blinked, and the light was gone.

But the circle was not empty.

There, just where the fire had been moments before, where the spirit _should_ have materialized if Sam hadn't been so tired and stupid—was a person. A woman, wearing short shorts and an oversized shirt that were probably her pajamas, based on her resting posture and the way her eyes were shut. _Were_ shut, anyway. She'd probably been in bed, and the sudden change from warm sheets to cold concrete would have startled anyone awake.

The woman shot upright, pale eyes wide and panicked. She looked wildly around, taking in the abandoned warehouse and the ritual circle, breath coming in sharp gasps. She glanced down at her hands, and seeing them unobstructed, she heaved herself to her feet with a speed that actually impressed Sam. And then, finally, her darting eyes landed on him.

Sam had been arranging his face into a sympathetic, calming expression. Clearly, the ritual had gone very wrong, and it had somehow summoned what appeared to be just a regular person. He was already planning the words he would say to get her to calm down, to let him explain just enough for her to understand that this was an accident, and to _please_ not go running barefoot down the street screaming about being kidnapped by a cult.

But then the woman spoke.

" _Sam Winchester_?"


	2. Kobayashi Maru

Cassandra Holmes was no stranger to the hypnic jerk, that special phenomenon where, on the edge of sleep, the body suddenly thinks it's falling, and jerks its muscles as if to brace itself. It usually didn't strike her while she was sleeping properly in a bed. Most of the time it happened, she was sitting upright on an airplane, or dozing on a desk, or napping on a couch. But every once in a while, in that hazy half-dreaming transition between a night of deep sleep and the inevitable coming of morning, she'd feel it, her restful doze rudely interrupted by her body's certainty that it was falling.

And so, when she was pulled out of sleep by the jerking of her limbs, by the sudden panic of falling, she was at first annoyed that she had lost the last few minutes of one of her rare weekend lie-ins. Annoyed, that was, until she felt her skin contact, not warm sheets or even carpet, but cold concrete.

Her apartment was carpeted. Ergo, she was not _in_ her apartment.

Cass's eyes shot open. She jerked upward into a sitting position first, and then quickly to her feet as she looked around, taking in her location. Her first thought, as she took in the empty-looking warehouse and the symbols on the floor, was that this was some kind of prank. Or maybe a test? But she didn't think any of her friends or colleagues would pull something this bizarre or elaborate. There was no way anyone could have moved her from her apartment to the middle of a warehouse without waking her, unless she'd been drugged. Cass didn't feel drugged, though. Her senses were fully alert and aware, taking in everything with keen detail, trying to figure out _what the hell_ was going on.

And then her eyes locked onto the man halfway across the room, who stood watching her with a kind of wary disappointment. As she watched, he started arranging his features—his _very familiar features—_ into an expression of placating sympathy.

Cass couldn't help it. Disbelief forced the words from her lips: " _Sam Winchester?_ "

It couldn't be a prank, then, or a test. No one she knew had the connections or the money to pull something like this off, and of course famous actors had better things to do than to play along with such things. And this wasn't some look-alike, either. Cass's eyes raked over the hair, the facial structure, the posture.

"You know me?" He even sounded like him, all earnest surprise and interest.

It was Sam Winchester, alright. Which meant that this had to be a dream. It didn't matter that it felt real, that she could feel the cool air on her skin and the hard concrete under her bare feet. Cass looked away from Sam, who was not real, and pinched herself, hard.

It hurt. She raised her eyes slowly, looking around. Still in the warehouse. Still being observed by a puzzled Sam Winchester.

"What the fuck?" Her mind was trying to come up with a logical explanation, and was coming up with nothing. Maybe this was a test after all? Maybe the resemblance was a trick of makeup and prosthetics. Maybe she _had_ been drugged after all. Maybe this was some weird, secret FBI version of the Kobayashi Maru, except instead of a no-win scenario they'd put her in a no- _sense_ scenario. "What the _fuck_?"

"Hey, it's alright." Sam was raising his hands, the way he might do with a startled person who'd just survived a monster attack. He edged a step closer, and Cass straightened up, watching him closely. She still didn't know what was going on, but she wasn't about to cry, or panic. She had to be able to _think_. "It's okay. You know who I am, right? You said my name."

Cass deliberated for a moment before answering, but ultimately didn't see any harm in admitting it. "Yes."

It occurred to her, then, how odd it was that she would see Sam without Dean. Or Castiel, or Bobby, or anyone else. Cass looked around the room, doing another sweep of the warehouse, but it was empty apart from them. Sam was alone.

"But you thought you were dreaming," Sam said, watching her carefully. "Right?"

She hadn't been too subtle about pinching herself, so it wasn't hard to guess how he'd picked up that idea. She shrugged minutely, a you-caught-me gesture. "Right."

Sam seemed to struggle for words. Cass looked away from him, and back to the ritual circle, narrowing her eyes. It didn't look quite like anything she'd ever seen on the show, and she wondered what it was supposed to be for. Since Sam appeared to still be attempting to order his own thoughts, she asked, "What is all this? What were you trying to do?"

Cass turned back to Sam in time to see his eyebrows shoot up a little, clearly surprised. Then he cleared his throat, looking a little embarrassed. "I was, uh—trying to summon a prophetic spirit."

That was weird. She didn't think the real Sam Winchester—or rather, the Sam Winchester _on television,_ because Sam Winchester was not _real_ —had ever done any such thing. He'd gone to see psychics, but usually not in an attempt to see the future. The Winchesters were usually more in the business of bucking Fate than trying to figure out what she had in store.

Cass's eyes found a book, lying open on the ground just outside the ritual circle. She padded over to it and scooped it up, peering curiously at the pages. It was old, and was written in what she guessed was Greek. Cass didn't speak any Greek, but she had could speak Russian, and the alphabets were similar enough that she could sort of guess at some of the words on the page. It made very little sense to her, except for one word, featured prominently.

"Cassandra."

Well, fuck.

"Not specifically," Sam said quickly. "The ritual invokes the spirit of Cassandra, but it's more metaphorical—"

Cass snorted, and Sam stopped talking.

"It's not metaphorical. It's literal." Cass lowered the book and met Sam's eyes, then deliberately tapped her own chest. "Cassandra Holmes. I'd say it's a pleasure, but…"

Cass trailed off. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that this was, as far as she could tell, real. She was really awake, really in a warehouse, really holding a spellbook in her hand while Sam Winchester furrowed his brow at her.

"How literal?" He said it forcefully, urgently. Cass blinked.

"What do you mean?" She thought she'd been pretty clear. The ritual said Cassandra, and here she was.

"I mean, the ritual I used—it's supposed to summon the spirit of Cassandra, who's seen the future." Sam was watching her intently, not blinking. "Have you?"

Cass sized him up, considering. The answer was _probably_ yes. He looked younger than she was used to, the lines of his face not quite as chiseled, his hair not quite as long or sleek. Those facts, combined with the fact that Sam appeared to be alone, and the fact that he was intently interested in whether she knew the future, gave Cass a pretty good guess of just where in the timeline of the Supernatural show she must be.

"That depends. When am I, exactly?"

"June," Sam said quickly. "June of 2008."

Cass hissed a surprised little breath, then turned to look at the wall, rubbing at her lips in thought. She wasn't sure exactly which seasons corresponded to which years, but 2008 seemed to be in the ballpark of her hunch. She turned back to Sam, who was starting to look cautiously hopeful, "And why are you trying to learn what happens in the future?"

"I think you know." Sam was looking at her, unblinking, in a way that was almost _thirsty._ It was beginning to make her uncomfortable.

"I have an educated guess," Cass hedged. Sam waited, and she sighed. "Is Dean in Hell?"

It looked like Sam had received a small electric shock. His eyes went wide, his hands spasmed a little, and he took a quick step forward. "Tell me how to save him. Please. You've got to tell me how I get him out."

"You don't."

Sam's face crumpled—a flash of grief that quickly morphed into anger. "No. I won't accept that! I'm going to get my brother back if it's the last thing I do. I—"

Cass cut him off. "Whoa, whoa. Calm down. He _does_ get out."

"But you just said—"

"I said _you_ don't save him," Cass corrected gently. "You don't. Not for lack of trying, obviously." She gestured at the ritual circle. "But he'll be back, I promise."

"Then who? How?" Sam's voice rose, growing louder and more frustrated. "How does he get out? If you just tell me, then I could do it now!"

"No, you couldn't." When Sam looked like he was preparing to spout more denials, she added, "Sam, you _physically_ can't. Look, I've just told you that you're getting your brother back. Soon, even! Can't you just be happy about that?"

"How can I be happy when my brother's still in Hell?"

Cass wasn't sure how to answer that, so she said nothing.

"How does he get out?" Sam demanded. "Who saves him? Bobby?"

Cass hesitated. She did _want_ to tell him. He was looking positively tortured—hollow cheeks, bags under his eyes, the works. She even started to figure out how to phrase 'a _n angel does it_ ' in a tactful way. But then she felt the very real grit of the cold concrete under her bare toes and decided that, if this was indeed real and not some very weird and very vivid dream, she should probably not mess with the timeline by giving Sam information he ought not have.

"I… don't think I should say."

"Why not?"

"Look, Sam, you wanted to know the future, and I told it to you," Cass said, trying to be gentle. "I understand you're upset, but it's going to be alright. Dean will be back soon. You don't have to drive yourself crazy over this."

Sam just stared, jaw tight, stubbornly silent. Cass coughed awkwardly and shuffled her feet.

"Now, if you could end this ritual, or spell, or whatever it is, and send me back, I would really appreciate it."

Again, Sam did not answer, but instead of looking angry he was beginning to look a bit sheepish. This did not reassure her.

"Uh. Sam?"

At last he admitted softly, "I don't know how."

" _What?"_

"I don't know!" Sam was talking louder and faster now. "This isn't how the ritual was supposed to work. It was supposed to summon a spirit, and the spirit was supposed to fade on its own—"

"This isn't happening." Cass pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. Took a few deep breaths. Opened them to see Sam still looking half-angry, half-apologetic. "This is not happening."

"Look, the ritual was supposed to last until the spirit gave a prophecy," Sam said, brightening. "If you just told me how Dean gets out, maybe it'll send you back."

"I already _gave_ you a prophecy," Cass said sourly. "Dean gets out, and it's not because of you. And also, something tells me you just pulled that excuse out of your ass because you want more information, and not because you actually think that would work."

The disappointed, vaguely chastised look on Sam's face confirmed this.

" _Fuck_."

"Where did you come from, anyway?" Sam asked, curious now. "Since you're not a spirit. Or, is it when?"

"It's both." Cass folded her arms and braced herself to deliver the stupid, crazy truth. "I'm not a seer. I'm a _viewer_. _You_ are supposed to be a character on a television show, and none of _this_ should be happening." She sighed, and mumbled hopefully to herself, "Maybe I'm on drugs. Maybe there was a gas leak in the building. Maybe I'm hallucinating all of this…"

"A… television show?" Sam's voice was high with disbelief. "About, what, _me_?"

"About you and Dean, yeah. You know—" Cass unfolded her arms to make air quotes. "'Saving people. Hunting things. The family business?'"

Sam looked unsettled, though by the quote, the idea of the show, or both, Cass couldn't tell. It was probably both. "And people _watch_ that?"

"Well, not many do, no," Cass said frankly. "Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway. Although the fan base is pretty passionate."

Sam looked lost.

"You know what? Never mind." Cass began to pace, lacing her hands and tugging at her fingers, trying to burn off nervous energy. "Maybe… _maybe_ , if I act like all of this is really real, and I get home in the hallucination, or dream, or whatever this is, then I'll wake up at home."

That seemed plausible enough, right? At least, it was more plausible than anything else about this situation. Cass turned to see what Sam thought of this idea, and found him looking slightly confused.

"You... want me to drive you home?"

"What?"

Cass blinked, then almost laughed at the idea of Sam Winchester dropping her off at her studio apartment in Washington, D.C., which probably hadn't even been built yet at this time, and certainly wouldn't be held in the name of Cassandra Holmes, who would be a teenager in 2008 in the unlikely event she even existed in this universe.

"No. God, no. Take me to Bobby Singer."

"Bobby?" Sam repeated, surprised. He seemed about to ask how she knew about Bobby, but then changed his mind and said, "Why Bobby?"

"Because he is the most knowledgeable hunter that I know of who is currently alive, and who might be able to send me back," Cass explained.

"Fair enough." Sam glanced at his watch tiredly, then sighed. "Okay. Let's go."

He turned and headed for a door at the side of the warehouse. Cass padded after him on bare feet, assessing him skeptically out of the corner of her eye. "Are you safe to drive? You look half-dead."

He really did. The gaunt cheeks, the bags under his eyes… Of all the ways to die in the Supernatural universe, being killed in a car accident because Sam Winchester fell asleep at the wheel was a pretty lame way to go.

"I'll get some coffee on the way." When Cass's concerned look did not dissipate, Sam insisted, "It's not that far."

"If you say so."

The Impala was sitting outside the warehouse, the only car in a dark gravel lot. Cass glanced back at the warehouse once, but decided that there was really nothing to be done about the cult-y looking ritual circle on the floor, and that whoever owned the property would just have to live with the mystery of what had gone on inside. Sam tromped directly to the car on booted feet, while Cass followed more slowly, wincing and picking her way across sharp gravel.

She might have been excited about climbing into the Impala, if this was a proper dream. Instead, she was feeling deeply uncomfortable, both with the surreality of the situation and the fact that she was definitely not wearing a bra under her sleep shirt. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide the effects of the cool night air and cleared her throat.

"Hey, uh, Sam?" Sam looked up questioningly from where he was unlocking the car. "Could I borrow a flannel, or something? I'm… feeling a little exposed, here."

It seemed to take a few seconds for the words to process in Sam's brain. Cass decided to attribute that to his exhaustion. Once the words did click, Sam's eyes flicked up and down her body once, and then locked determinedly on her face as his cheeks went slightly pink.

"Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Of course."

Cass had to duck her head to hide a small snicker at Sam's awkwardness as she picked the rest of the way across the gravel to the car. Sam rummaged in the trunk and emerged swiftly with a blue and white flannel shirt, handing it to her quickly and then retreating to the driver's side of the car. Cass donned the flannel, which came down almost all the way to her knees, and rolled up the sleeves before she pulled open the passenger door. She climbed into the Impala gingerly, holding her breath. She wasn't sure what she was expecting. To wake up, maybe. But nothing happened, aside from Sam starting the car, the engine not quite as loud as Cass would have imagined. She buckled her seatbelt and looked around, feeling like she was intruding on something sacred.

They drove in silence for maybe five minutes, Sam navigating the car out of the lot and through some dark country roads before pulling into a truck stop McDonald's. It took less than three minutes for them to be handed two black coffees through the drive-thru window, a large one for Sam, who still looked vaguely ill, and a small one for Cass, who was well awake but wanted something warm and comforting to hold on to.

And then they drove, heading west towards Sioux Falls, and the awkward silence stretched on, broken only by quiet slurps of coffee and the occasional cautious glances they shot at each other.

Finally Sam cleared his throat. "You said Dean would get out soon?"

"Yeah..." Cass stretched the word out a little, hoping to convey her continued reluctance to talk about the future.

"How soon?"

Cass considered her answer. It wouldn't be _too_ damaging to reveal that information, she thought. There was nothing Sam could really do to change it or speed it up. And besides, "I'm not exactly sure. A few months, maybe? I want to say sometime in September."

"How come you'll tell me that, but you won't tell me how he gets out?" Sam demanded immediately.

"Because the most you can do knowing _when_ he gets out is plan a kick-ass welcome back party. With how?" Cass shook her head. "I don't know what you might do."

"So you're saying I _could_ do something."

"I know how things are supposed to play out," Cass said slowly, not looking at Sam and choosing her words carefully. "If they play out the way I saw them, then things will eventually work out alright. I'm not gonna lie, it's a rough road, but things _do_ eventually work out alright."

Cass looked at Sam finally then, to show him she was serious. "But if I tell you something that changes your behavior, it could change _everything_."

"You ever thought that maybe it should?"

"No." Cass shot him a hard look. "Look, I'm not going to argue with you about this for however long it takes us to get to Sioux Falls. But I'd bet you ten bucks that when we get there, Bobby's going to agree with me that _messing with timelines is a bad idea_."

"Maybe." Sam glanced speculatively at her. "But maybe the timeline's already been messed up. It's like you said, right? None of this should be happening. You're not even supposed to be here."

Cass's fingers tightened on her coffee cup. "No. I'm not."

Sam furrowed his brow, glancing a couple of times between Cass and the road before the realization hit him. He sounded genuinely surprised when he said, "You're afraid."

Cass didn't bother to deny it. He was right. She wasn't supposed to be here. If this turned out to be real—and a big part of her was beginning to think it was, because no dream had ever felt this vivid—then she was riding shotgun next to a guy who'd be fighting the coming _Apocalypse_ in a few short months.

To Sam's puzzled, concerned look, Cass said simply, "I know what's coming."

And then, to discourage any more conversation on Sam's part, Cass poked at the iPod Sam had mounted to the Impala's dash. A thought occurred to her, though, and she decided to offer one last, fairly inconsequential tidbit of information.

"He's gonna hate this, by the way." At Sam's quizzical look, Cass clarified, "The iPod. Dean's going to hate it."

And then she pressed play. Sam took the hint, and drove.

Cass pulled her legs up under her on the bench seat and tried to think herself out of the situation. It was very difficult, because instead of coming up with solutions to her predicament, her brain insisted on trying to remind her that the whole situation was impossible, and that she shouldn't _need_ a solution because the problem didn't make any goddamn sense in the first place.

But if the pinch in the warehouse and the sharp gravel in the parking lot hadn't convinced her, the sharp taste of hot McDonald's coffee burning her tongue and the full-body rumble of the Impala's engine had. She'd never had a dream this vivid before, where she could feel like this, _taste_ like this.

Which meant that there was a very good chance that this _wasn't_ a dream.

So unless virtual reality programs had become much more seamless overnight and she was currently being pranked in an overly elaborate and probably incredibly expensive way by party or parties unknown…

Then this was probably real.

And if it was… then she'd have to figure out some way to get back to her own universe, where the absurdly tall man in the driver's seat was nothing more than an actor and the Apocalypse was just a plot point.

Cass forced herself to think. Sam and Dean had gone to a different universe once, hadn't they? It had been a fun episode—they'd ended up on the set of Supernatural, and they got to poke fun at the actors on the show within the show. It had been fun, but it hadn't been _real_. They hadn't _really_ come to Cass's dimension. It was just one more episode of a fictional show.

But if this world was real, then maybe… maybe the principle was the same.

How had that episode worked? It had something to do with angels, Cass thought. She couldn't remember the details. She'd only watched the show all the way through about twice. She was usually more inclined to re-watch just the first few seasons. It was one of her comfort-watches, something to put on in the background on nights she was feeling down, or to keep her company along with a bottle of DayQuil when she got sick. But she tended to always start right back at the beginning, and she rarely went much further than season five.

So Cass hadn't paid close attention to the season with that universe-traveling episode. She hadn't paid close attention to much of anything past season ten, really, and she hadn't bothered watching the later seasons much at all once things had gotten… well. Cass hadn't been interested in watching angst between a resurrected Mary Winchester and the baby-faced son of Lucifer, especially once they'd killed Crowley off.

Cass forced herself to try to remember the episode in question. It definitely had something to do with angels, she was sure of it. Did Castiel send them to a different universe? She couldn't remember, but she thought maybe it was someone else. She did remember that Castiel hadn't gone with them, though—Sam and Dean had taken the place of their respective actors, but Misha Collins had played a version of himself in the alternate universe, which meant that Castiel had stayed in this one. The only other detail she could remember was that the passage through universes seemed to involve crashing through glass of some kind.

Cass fiddled anxiously with a button on Sam's borrowed shirt. It wasn't a lot to go on. She didn't remember anything about how the spell worked. All she could remember was that it involved angels. That wasn't a lot of information to give to Bobby Singer when they got to Sioux Falls, and what little information she did have—that it was an angel who did it, and crashing through glass was involved—was something Cass wasn't even sure she should say. Neither Bobby nor Sam had even _met_ an angel yet, and they weren't due to meet Castiel until a few months from now, when he pulled Dean from the pit.

If she told them, Sam and Bobby would get ideas. If she didn't tell them, she might be stuck in this universe. If she knew which angel had done it, Cass could maybe try praying to them—but she didn't know, and even if she did, the angel might be more interested in finding out what Cass knew than in returning her to her own universe.

Cass closed her eyes and rested her head against the passenger window, head aching with all the possibilities.


	3. Trojan Horse

Cass didn't remember drifting off to sleep, but she blinked awake when the rumble of the Impala's engine cut out. She peeled her face off the cool glass of the window and peered outside. Under the pink-orange dawn sky, she was able to make out a two story house, a field of surrounding cars, and a sign that read _Singer Salvage_.

"This is it."

Sam looked exhausted, the bags under his eyes darker and more stark in the light of early morning. Cass felt terrible for falling asleep on him, because even tense company was better than sleeping company when driving tired in the early hours of morning, but before she could apologize, Sam was already climbing out of the car. Cass opened the passenger door and followed him up onto the porch, her fingers nervously twisting the too-long sleeves of Sam's borrowed shirt.

The front door swung open before Sam could knock. Bobby Singer stepped out, a single shot glass in hand and a puzzled, disapproving frown on his face.

"I coulda brought out another glass if I knew you were gonna bring company." His tone was reprimanding. He glanced quickly away from Sam and held the shot glass out toward Cass. "Ladies first."

Cass wondered briefly what a normal person who didn't know anything about hunters or the supernatural would think about being offered what appeared to be a shot of vodka, but was actually holy water. But then, she supposed Bobby knew Sam would never have brought her here if she wasn't in the know somehow. Cass took the shot glass and lifted it in a wry salute.

"Cheers." She knocked back the holy water and handed the glass back to Bobby. He accepted it without comment and reached into his shirt pocket to refill it from a silver flask.

"Sorry, Bobby," Sam said tiredly. "I would've called ahead, but I didn't want to wake you."

Bobby grunted skeptically and pushed the shot glass into Sam's hand. "What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?"

Sam swallowed the holy water before coughing a little. "What makes you think I'm in trouble?"

"You turn up on my doorstep at the ass-crack of dawn, after weeks of ignoring my calls, with some stranger in tow wearin' nothin' but one of your shirts," Bobby said flatly, unimpressed. "You really gonna tell me you're _not_ in trouble?"

Sam opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He couldn't seem to decide what to say. Cass decided to get the ball rolling.

"He tried to summon a ghost and accidentally yanked me across dimensions instead. I'm hoping you can send me back."

Bobby stared hard at her, seemingly trying to decide if she was serious, then looked at Sam, who winced. Bobby's face darkened, and he pulled the front door open behind him.

"Get in."

Sam and Cass quickly obeyed. Once they were over the threshold, Bobby slammed the door shut and laid in.

"What the hell were you thinking, Sam? Summoning _ghosts_? What, the crossroad demons wouldn't bite, so you figured you'd try _necromancy_?"

"It's not like that, Bobby," Sam argued. "And even if it was, I'm not going to apologize for trying to get my brother back!"

Cass backed away slowly, feeling like an intruder as Sam and Bobby's voices grew steadily louder.

"Dean wouldn't have wanted _this_! He made that deal to _save_ your ass. Pulling him from the pit ain't worth it if it kills you all over again!"

"So what, I'm supposed to just live my life while my brother is rotting in Hell?" Sam shook his head. "I can't do that, Bobby. I can't stop until I get him out."

"Just what the hell did you do, anyway?" Bobby demanded sharply. "What's all this about other _dimensions_?"

Sam sighed heavily, rubbing at his already-bloodshot eyes. When he spoke again his voice was quiet.

"I was desperate. Okay? The demons weren't dealing. I didn't know what else to do, but I know I'm not going to give up until I save Dean. So I figured, if I could look into the future, to see _how_ I save Dean, then I'd know where to look." Sam looked a little uncomfortable as he outlined this, possibly because saying it aloud revealed how colossally stupid the plan sounded. Bobby snorted.

"And how many hours of sleep were you running on when you cooked up that bass-ackwards plan?" Sam looked away from Bobby, jaw clenched—maybe holding back from saying more words he'd regret. Bobby continued. "I still don't understand what you were trying to _do_. You want to know the future, you go to a psychic. You don't summon the _dead_."

"I did go to psychics," Sam said immediately. "I did. But they couldn't tell me anything useful. So, I figured I'd summon the best one there ever was."

"Nostradamus?" Bobby guessed sarcastically.

"Cassandra."

"You tried to summon the ghost of Cassandra."

Sam winced again at Bobby's flat tone. "Yeah."

Bobby turned to Cass then. "I take it that's where you come in?"

"Yeah. Hi." She waved awkwardly. "Cassandra Holmes. But I prefer Cass."

She very nearly added that they could call her 'Holmes' if they wanted, to avoid confusion, but then she would have to explain who _else_ they called 'Cass' in the future. She kept her mouth shut.

"Alright, Cass." Bobby regarded her with skepticism. "How are you so sure you're from another dimension?"

"Um." She shifted her weight from foot to foot, then decided there was really no easing him into it. "Where I come from, you're both characters on a TV show."

"Bullshit."

"Bobby, I think she's telling the truth," Sam said quickly.

Bobby turned his deeply skeptical look on Sam. Sam pulled out the spell book from inside his jacket and began flipping through pages. When he'd found the page with the correct ritual, he turned the book around so Bobby could read it.

"Look, here—I tried to summon 'the ghost of Cassandra, who has seen the future'." Sam looked up from the book and glanced back at Cass, wincing again. "I think what I actually summoned is… well, _a_ Cassandra who's seen the future."

"Uh huh." Bobby looked far from convinced, but turned to Cass expectantly. "Alright then, _Cassandra_ , lay some prophecy on me. What happens in this TV show of yours?"

"Honestly, it's been a while since I watched it, so the details are pretty fuzzy," Cass warned. Bobby waved impatiently for her to proceed, and she did.

"Okay. Well, season one starts with Dean finding Sam at Stanford because John's gone missing, so they go on a hunt trying to find him. But when Sam gets back, Jessica—" Cass swallowed, glanced at Sam's tired, gaunt face and decided to skip the details. "Right, so, they spend most of the season hunting monsters and trying to find John. Which eventually they do, but they get mixed up in some demon stuff along the way. And I think Meg is in season one?"

Cass paused. Sam and Bobby were staring at her a little wide-eyed, but obviously they didn't keep track of their own lives in terms of seasons, so they weren't able to answer her question.

"Anway. The first season ends with the big car crash, and then season two opens with Dean in the hospital, and John making the deal with Yellow-Eyes to save his life. Do you know his name is Azazel at this point? I can't remember… Anyway, so then season two is Sam and Dean trying to find a way to stop Azazel, and at some point I think you get the Colt? I don't remember when that happens. And all the while Sam's having visions of the future because of the whole demon blood thing, and then towards the end he's abducted by Azazel in sort of a weird psychic Hunger Games type deal—except I don't think that series exists yet so you won't understand that reference—and Sam gets killed, so Dean makes a demon deal to bring Sam back to life. And so season three's main plot is trying to prevent Dean from going to Hell. Unsuccessfully, obviously."

Bobby and Sam stared some more.

Cass furrowed her brow thoughtfully and added, "Also Ruby shows up at some point in there, I think."

"Well, that's a disturbingly accurate summary of what's _already_ happened," Bobby said, "But I'll notice you haven't said anything about the future. Just how many seasons of this show are there, anyway?"

"Fifteen," Cass said. "And season four starts with Dean coming back from Hell."

"What?" Bobby stepped forward eagerly, skepticism forgotten. "How? When?"

"Soon." Cass glanced between Sam and Bobby, both of them looking hopeful and attentive. "...But I don't think I should say any more." Cass decided to ignore Sam's rebellious look and direct her next words to Bobby. "Look, I'm not supposed to _be_ here. Anything else I tell you could change things, and I can't even _express_ how disastrous that could be." Cass tried to convey to Bobby with the width of her eyes how serious she was about that. " _Please_ say you can get me home."

Bobby hummed thoughtfully, taking the spell book from Sam and looking more closely at the ritual.

"It's hard to say." Bobby looked up at Sam. His anger seemed to have cooled by now to a fond irritation. "I don't suppose you know exactly how you botched it?"

"I know I got the summoning circle right, and the fire," Sam said. "I, uh... may have forgotten a few words of the incantation."

"Idjit." Bobby sighed, rubbing at his forehead, then looked apologetically at Cass. "I might have to make some calls. Most of what I know about alternate realities—and it ain't much—is all theoretical. I've never even _heard_ of a hunter who's encountered something like this before."

"I have." Cass paused, trying to figure out how to phrase it. Carefully, she said, "That is, in a later season, there was a spell used in the show that created a sort of door into a world like mine. But I don't remember the ingredients for it, or words, or anything."

"Tell me what you do remember."

"Umm. There was some kind of spell—I don't remember if there were ingredients, or an incantation. There might have been a symbol, painted on a window? There was definitely glass… and the subjects of the spell crashed through it and into the other dimension." Cass grimaced at how incredibly unhelpful that description sounded.

Bobby frowned thoughtfully. "Was it a one-way trip?"

"No, they came back," Cass said quickly. "I can't remember how it worked, but they got back by crashing into the same window. Or, I guess, a new window in the same location, in the other universe."

"That's still not much to go on." Bobby hummed thoughtfully again. "Do you remember who cast this spell?"

Cass bit her lip, then shook her head.

"You don't know?" Sam asked with narrowed eyes, eyes watching the nervous motion of her lips, "Or you won't say?"

"I really don't remember who," Cass said. Then, more hesitantly, added, "I do remember _what…_ but I don't think I should say."

"It might be the difference in you getting home," Bobby said seriously.

"The problem is, I don't know if the thing that cast it is currently friendly," Cass explained. "But I know for sure that others like it definitely are _not_ , and I really don't want to risk being tortured for information about the future."

"Tortured?" Bobby repeated, eyebrows shooting up. "You talkin' demons?"

"No."

Cass did not explain further. Bobby and Sam traded confused looks. Bobby then looked back at Cass, then to the book in his hand, and back.

"I'll see what I can dig up. In the meantime…" Bobby turned to Sam. "Go get some rest, would you? You look dead on your feet."

"I'm not—" Sam blinked heavily and let out a long breath, letting go of whatever protest he'd been about to make. Probably because the looks on Bobby and Cass's faces said he wasn't fooling anybody. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks, Bobby."

Sam shot one last, unreadable look at Cass, then trudged up the stairs and out of sight.

"There's another guest room up there if you wanted to catch some shut-eye, too," Bobby offered.

"I don't think I could sleep." Not only had she slept in the car, she was now in _Bobby Singer's house_. The weirdness of the situation was enough to keep her awake. Instead, Cass gestured at the stacks of musty books all around Bobby's front room. "But I could read, if there's anything here that might help."

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "How's your ancient Greek?"

"Nonexistent. But I can read French, German, and Russian, so long as it's not too archaic."

Bobby nodded, then worked his way around the room, sorting through books to decide what might be useful. He managed to produce a stack of about five in languages Cass could read, which he handed to her. He kept a taller stack of books for himself, setting the small tower on a small side table near an armchair. Cass curled up into a corner of the couch and began comparing the titles of the books, trying to decide where to start.

"Coffee?" Bobby asked from the kitchen. Cass could just make out the burble and hiss of an old-fashioned drip coffee pot.

"Please." Bobby emerged with two mugs of black coffee and set one on the coffee table in front of her. "Thanks."

Bobby frowned at her thoughtfully, making no move to sit down in the armchair. Finally, in a low, cautious voice, he said, "He really is coming back?"

He looked very vulnerable asking the question. The light of morning coming in through the window highlighted the silver in his beard and showed Cass that Sam wasn't the only one who'd been losing sleep for the last couple of weeks. Even now, Bobby Singer held himself stiffly, not quite daring to hope, and Cass was struck with the reminder that what she thought of as plot was real life to him, and it was anything but certain.

"He really is," she promised.

"And you being here isn't going to throw a wrench in that?"

Cass considered it, frowning. "It shouldn't… But it's probably best to get me home ASAP, just in case."

She tucked in to the only volume Bobby had handed her that was in English. There were also two books in French, and one each in German and Russian, but Cass didn't have the mental energy to focus on second languages. Not that the English was much better, she found. The book was a few hundred years old, at least, with delicate pages and a flourishing script that made it difficult to read. It took her at least twice as long to make it through a page as it normally would have, and Cass found herself reaching for the coffee often, though she was careful to keep it well away from the probably-priceless book.

Eventually, though, the coffee ran out, and Cass curled up even further into the couch, determined to make it through _The misteryes of many worldes._

* * *

Cass frowned, pulling the blanket tighter around her, and tried to ignore the sunlight warming her face. It was a weekend. She could sleep as long as she wanted to. Except… something was wrong. This didn't feel like her couch.

Low voices drifted in from the next room.

"How's the research going?"

A sigh. "Bad. Magic's hard at the best of times, but trying to reverse a botched ritual like this…"

Cass opened her eyes. It hadn't been a bizarre dream, after all. She really was in the Supernatural universe, snuggled under a blanket on Bobby Singer's lumpy couch.

"Was it really botched, though?" Sam asked, voice earnest but still low, probably trying not to wake her

"You were trying to summon a ghost, and instead you pulled a real, live person across _dimensions_ ," Bobby said dryly. "Yeah, I'd say you botched it."

"But she knows the future! Why should we let her go without finding out what she knows?" Bobby must have made a face, because Sam rushed to continue, "No, Bobby, listen—there was nothing I could do for the last year, nothing I could do to stop Dean from going to Hell. And now we have someone who knows what's going to happen, who knows how to save him! How is that not a sign?"

"A sign." Bobby's voice was hard. "Sam, do you know the _story_ of Cassandra?"

"Yeah, of course. She was a seer, but she was cursed, so no one would believe her prophecies."

"That's half of it. But do you know the biggest prophecy she ever made?" Cass guessed Sam shook his head, because Bobby explained, "She predicted the fall of Troy. Remember the Trojan horse? Cassandra warned them not to bring it into the city. No one listened, and Troy fell."

"What's your point?" Sam's voice was clipped.

"My point is, you keep lookin' at her future knowledge like it's a gift, but _she_ says it's dangerous. I'm not inclined to make the same mistake as the Trojans."

"That's a little superstitious, Bobby, even for you."

"I'm a hunter, boy. Superstition's what keeps us alive."

"But she's not even a real seer," Sam pressed. "She can't _know_ that telling us would change anything."

"Apparently, she's Cassandra enough to get yanked across dimensions. If she volunteers more information, then fine. I'll take it. But I ain't gonna push it. And neither should you. You _ought_ to be grateful."

"Grateful." Sam huffed in disbelief. "For what?"

"For giving you hope." Bobby said, as if it should be obvious. "For giving _me_ hope. You might not wanna admit it, but there was a part of you that thought you'd never get your brother back. That's certainly what I thought."

Sam made an inarticulate noise of protest.

"I'm not sayin' I didn't want him back, that I wasn't tryin' to find a way, but you know it was a long shot, Sam. You've been grievin'. We've both been grievin'. And now we can stop grievin', because now at least we know that he's comin' back. You can stop summoning demons, stop this self-destructive bullshit you've been doin' ever since Dean went under."

Cass didn't want to hear any more of their conversation. She'd already heard more than she wanted to. She pushed the blanket to the floor and yawned, making conspicuous 'waking up' noises to communicate to the pair in the kitchen that she would hear them if they continued speaking. Bobby and Sam both fell quiet. Cass stood up, bringing her empty coffee cup to the kitchen. When she entered, she shot Bobby an apologetic smile.

"Sorry I dozed off. I think I'll have to add the book I was reading to your pile. It's technically in English, but there's no way I know enough about _alchemy_ to get anything useful from it."

"Fair enoug," Bobby said easily. "Sam was just volunteering to pick us up some grub from town."

"Uh, yeah, I was." Sam seemed to take the lie in stride and looked at Cass. "Any requests?"

"Is there any place to get a good veggie burger around here?" Cass wasn't sure how much vegetarian-friendly cuisine could be purchased in and around Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 2008.

Sam's brows rose. "Yeah, actually. Burgers it is."

Sam left, and Bobby beckoned for Cass to follow him up the stairs. "Your problem isn't gonna get solved in the next twelve hours, so I figured I might as well show you where you can sleep—other than my couch."

The room was the first on the left at the top of the stairs. Bobby opened it for her, and within Cass found a double bed, dressed in slightly faded yellow sheets and a more colorful quilt than Cass would have thought Bobby would choose. The room also contained a small vanity with a mirror, a side table with a lamp and alarm clock, a wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and three mismatched bookshelves crammed with yet more books. There was also a narrow door in one corner, which Cass guessed led to a closet.

"Bathroom's the second door on the right side of the hall. Towels are under the sink. There's some clean clothes in the closet, too, if you wanted to change. It's all old stuff the boys have left here over the years, so it ain't exactly fashion, but it's clean."

"Thanks, Bobby."

Cass decided to take the hint and shower. She rummaged through the closet first, locating a pair of navy track pants that could not possibly have fit either Sam or Dean after the age of sixteen, an old t-shirt that was once red but had faded to more of a dark pink, and a red and black flannel, because, for obvious reasons, there were no bras in the closet.

It was weird to be in Bobby Singer's guest room. It was weird to be anywhere in this world, but this was different. The interior of this room has never been shown on the show, and the fact that it existed proved that this wasn't just some set. This was a real house, owned by a real person. The furniture in the room had been around for decades. Cass could see nicks and scratches on the bedframe and trunk from years of use, from being moved and bumped into. Someone had picked out the faded yellow floral sheets on the bed. Someone had sewn the quilt on the bed.

Possibly, the person who had done both was Bobby's late wife.

The reality of it all troubled Cass, even once she left the bedroom to take a shower. More evidence of Bobby and Sam's humanity greeted her there: a half-empty tube of toothpaste and two toothbrushes sitting on the sink, a bar of soap and dented plastic bottle of some generic 3-in-one body wash in the shower.

Cass showered quickly and emerged smelling cleaner than before and more masculine than she was used to. By the time she'd changed into her new borrowed clothes and wrung the excess moisture out of her hair, she could hear the rumble of the Impala's engine, signaling that Sam had arrived back with food.

"So, Cass." Bobby broke the tense silence minutes later, as Cass took bites of delightfully salty fries and tried to pretend Sam wasn't staring at her. "Where're you from? I'm assuming there's still an America in this alternate reality of yours."

"A little bit of everywhere," She explained, happy for the distraction, "Military family. We moved around a lot. But I've lived in D.C. for the last few years."

"What about your family?"

"My parents live in the 'burbs about an hour outside of the city. Dad's a federal contractor now, mom's a librarian. My big sister, Alex, lives up in Maryland with her husband."

Sam finally spoke up to ask, "You live alone?"

"Yeah. Tiny studio apartment in the city—not much room for anyone else." Wistfully she added, "I'd have liked to get a dog, but I don't have the time."

"Busy job?" Bobby asked. "What were you doin' in DC that had you usin' French, German, and Russian? State Department?"

"Cyber crime analysis for the FBI," Cass said. "The French and German don't get used much, but the Russian comes in handy…"

She trailed off. Bobby had begun coughing, hard. Sam put down his food, glancing between Bobby and Cass with some concern. Bobby took a long swig of his beer to clear his throat and then forced out with difficulty, "You're a _fed_?"

"...yes?" Cass wasn't sure why that warranted the wide-eyed looks she was receiving.

"Sorry," Sam said, "it's just… you don't exactly look like an agent."

"Neither do you, Mr. Transparent Rock-and-roll Alias," Cass shot back, unimpressed. "But for the record, I'm _not_ an agent. I'm an analyst."

Bobby and Sam glanced at each other. Cass sighed and explained, "It means I sit behind a computer and I don't carry a gun."

"How did you get into that?" asked Sam, sounding truly interested now.

"Recruited for it right out of college," Cass shrugged again, chomping on another fry. "It's surprisingly difficult to find competent IT people who comply with the FBI's strict drug policy."

"Huh."

Bobby said, in a half-questioning tone, "I suppose you know all about us."

Cass nodded slowly. "Yeah. I mean, more about Sam and Dean than you, but still." She frowned apologetically at him. "It must be weird to have a stranger show up who knows everything about you."

"On its own?" Bobby said. "That wouldn't even break the top ten. On top of everything else? Yeah. It's pretty weird. Even for a hunter."

* * *

Days passed. Bobby read and made phone calls. Sam kept his distance, spending a good amount of time on his computer, and watched Cass carefully. It was evident that Sam still very much wanted to shake Cass until answers about the future fell out, but under Bobby's watchful eye he wasn't acting on the impulse.

Cass, for her part, spent the time frowning at hundred-year old books and worrying.

None of this was supposed to be happening. Neither Sam nor Bobby had ever dealt with anything quite like this before, and as Cass and Bobby worked through all the books in Bobby's library which even mentioned the possibility of alternate universes, Cass was beginning to lose hope. On her seventh day in the Supernatural universe, Cass pushed aside a nineteenth century German treatise on other worlds, which turned out to mostly be about planets, and groaned.

"I hate books."

Across the room, Sam huffed quietly behind his computer. "Don't let Bobby hear you say that."

"Why can't you hunters digitize your shit?" Cass complained. "Scan all these into a computer, transcribe them, put them in a _database_. Then we could search by keywords, and I wouldn't have to slog through all this _Bockmist_."

"Bockmist?"

"Bullshit."

Sam huffed another laugh. "Yeah, it's a nice idea, but I think the most advanced tech most hunters use is an EMF meter." Sam cleared his throat then. "So, uh, you're not finding anything? About how to get back?"

"No." Cass pinched the bridge of her nose tiredly and sighed. "This is the last book in a language I'm capable of reading, and for the last twenty pages it's just been a long speculation about what civilization on Neptune might look like."

"Ouch." Sam hesitated. Looking a little pained, like he'd rather not say anything, he said, "What about that spell you told Bobby about? I know you said you don't remember much, but maybe it's worth trying to find whoever cast it."

"I already told you, I don't remember who cast it."

"Whatever cast it, then. I know you said it was dangerous, but if it's something we've dealt with before, maybe we can help," Sam argued.

"It's not something you've dealt with before."

"But we will eventually," Sam said shrewdly.

"You will eventually," Cass agreed. "And that's all you're getting out of me about it."

"Why do you care so much about whether I change something?" The question burst out of Sam, seven days of holding it in causing it to explode with force. "How do you know it won't make things better? Hell, what do you care if it doesn't? You're gonna leave anyway!"

Cass took a moment to absorb the anger and hostility radiating from Sam. It was understandable, if she looked at it from his point of view. His brother was in Hell. Cass knew what could save him, and she wasn't telling. If it had been her own sister, and someone knew how to help her out of such a dire situation, but was refusing to tell because of some bullshit about _timelines_ , Cass would be upset, too.

"I don't _know_ that it won't make things better," Cass admitted finally, in a tired voice. "I'm _afraid_ that it won't, because if I tell you something, and it changes what you do and it gets you killed, or Bobby killed, then it'll be all my fault."

Sam looked surprised at these words, but only for a moment before his expression became mulish. "Don't you think that should be our decision?"

"Probably." Cass folded her arms. "Tell you what, Sam: you find a way to get me home, and I'll tell you what you want to know. In fact, I'll tell you _more_ than you want to know. But for as long as I'm stuck in this universe without a way home, I'm keeping my mouth shut."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. He clearly hadn't been expecting her to give in to his reasoning. But Cass was tired, and Sam wasn't wrong. She wasn't willing to destroy this world's timeline while she was still in it, but once she was gone, there was no reason she couldn't warn Sam and Bobby about some of the things to come.

"Deal."


	4. Gandalf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are spoilers for the Lord of the Rings in this chapter. I feel like it's old enough that I shouldn't have to warn people, but just in case... spoilers.

Another week passed. Cass spent the time scouring Bobby's bookshelf for anything else that might help her. When she was sure Sam and Bobby weren't looking, she even pulled a few titles that referred to angels, but even those didn't help. Cass found herself wishing she had access to the fancy library in the Men of Letters bunker from later seasons.

Sam, while initially invigorated by the thought of getting answers if he could find her a way home, was looking increasingly frustrated. He kept running his hands through his hair and frowning at his computer. Bobby, who had at first been making and receiving several phone calls a day looking for information, began to get fewer and fewer calls.

And then, one day, Bobby came into the front room where Cass was staring hopelessly at an eighteenth century Russian manuscript and handed her a generous glass of whiskey. Cass stared at the glass for a long moment, then at Bobby's grave face. Finally, she took it.

"I'm guessing this isn't a celebratory drink."

"I can't find a way to reverse the ritual," Bobby said apologetically, confirming her fears. "Things are complicated, because the ritual wasn't _supposed_ to bring you here. There's no tellin' just what happened that caused the thing to go haywire, but it didn't work like this other spell you told me about. There's no doorway between your world and ours that you can return through. It's more like Sam cast a fishing line out into the multiverse and pulled you straight into ours. Even if I could reverse the process and send you back, I'd have no way of guaranteeing you end up back where you came from. If by some miracle we put you in the right _dimension_ , you could end up 200 years in the past, or at the bottom of the ocean. Hell, for all I know, the magic tying you here could dry up and yank you back to your original universe at any time. But it doesn't seem likely."

Cass hunched forward on the couch. Her hands were shaking, and she forced herself to take a large sip of the whiskey before she could spill it all over the carpet. The harsh bite of the alcohol steadied her a little, but it made her eyes burn. Or maybe they were already doing that.

Part of her had known that this was how it would turn out. Ever since that first car ride in the Impala where she'd burned her tongue on hot, black coffee, a part of her had been whispering that there would be no going home. It had been getting louder and louder every morning she woke up in the bed in Bobby's guest room, instead of her own bed in her apartment. And now, she knew for sure.

Cass took another large gulp of whiskey and tried not to cry.

Bobby sighed heavily and said, "Seems to me your best option is to try and find whoever who cast that spell you told me about in the first place, and see if they can send you back."

'I _can't_." Cass had thought about it every day, but the only angel she could think to reach out to was Castiel, and at this point in time he'd be all about following orders. If she prayed to him and he actually listened, it was more likely to get her locked up in Heaven's jail than to get her home. "It's like I said before. It's too dangerous."

"More dangerous than staying here?" Sam asked from across the room. "You seemed pretty worried about what's supposed to happen."

Cass weighed her options. She could either be tortured for information by angels, or she could try to ride out the Apocalypse in Bobby's panic room. Neither of those sounded _good_ , but Cass would definitely pick the one that didn't involve torture and interrogation.

"Yes," Cass said finally, defeated.

"Then I'm sorry to say it," said Bobby, "but it looks like you're stuck here."

"Fuck." Cass downed the rest of the whiskey in one swallow and started to pace.

What the hell was she supposed to do? She'd already messed up the timeline of the show just by being here. She'd probably mess it up even more if she stayed, but she couldn't get home and it wasn't like there was anywhere else she could go. She had no documents, no evidence that she even existed in this universe. But then, there was no way she could stay any longer and not tell Sam and Bobby at least _some_ things about the future. They would turn to her for answers, and Cass didn't doubt that eventually they'd get them.

 _"Fuck_."

"Here." Bobby extended the bottle of whiskey to her and Cass paused her pacing just long enough for him to refill her glass.

"Are you alright?" Sam sounded cautious. His eyes were tracing Cass's pacing, and the speed with which she was draining the whiskey, with some concern. "Maybe you should sit back down…"

Cass shook her head impatiently, then stopped pacing and took a large, fortifying gulp of whiskey. She turned and jabbed a finger at Sam and asked abruptly, "You've seen the Lord of the Rings, right?"

Sam stared at her, his mouth open, but no sound came out. Cass turned to Bobby and waved her hand at him to show that the question was directed at him, as well. She added impatiently, "Or read the books, doesn't matter."

Bobby and Sam traded baffled looks. Sam was the one who finally said, "Uh. Yeah?"

Cass began to pace again, speaking quickly and gesturing wildly, though managing not to spill a drop of the whiskey.

"Imagine you have just been dropped into the Council of Elrond. You know what's going to happen over the next few months. You know Gandalf and Boromir and a bunch of other people are going to die, you know Merry and Pippin will be kidnapped by orcs, and you know Gollum will betray Frodo before the end. _But_ you also know that the good guys win in the end, and Sauron is defeated." Cass rounded on Sam and Bobby and demanded, "What do you do?"

Neither of them spoke. Maybe they thought the question was rhetorical. It wasn't, and Cass went on.

"You _could_ try to save Gandalf, but if you succeed then he'll never become Gandalf the White and gain the power to beat Saruman. You _could_ try to save Boromir, but then he might not try to take the ring from Frodo, and the fellowship might not split. If you save Merry and Pippin, they'll never meet the Ents in Fangorn Forest. And if you warn Frodo away from Gollum, he'll never make it into Mordor."

Cass took another gulp of whiskey and turned to see if they had caught on yet. Sam's expression was growing dark, Bobby's was a mix between thoughtful and troubled.

"Every seemingly positive change you make could totally change the story in huge, catastrophic ways," Cass said earnestly, then groaned in frustration. "Not to mention what you might change just by sheer _accident_."

"This isn't just some _story_ ," Sam said, disbelief and anger making his voice hard. "We're real people."

"No offense, Sam, but I'm sure Frodo would say the same thing."

"It's not the same!" Sam stood and glared down at her. Cass wondered if he was trying to intimidate her with his height on purpose. Intentional or not, it was working. "I'm just trying to save my brother, not—not _Middle Earth_!"

"Hang on a second," Bobby cut in, brow furrowed. "Are you tryin' to say that _Dean Winchester_ is _Gandalf_?"

Cass bit her lip. Then she said, wincing, "A bit, yeah."

"So you want to let my brother rot in Hell for another few months just so he can come back as—as _Gandalf the White_?" Sam asked, voice high and incredulous.

"I don't want to _be here_!" Cass raked a frustrated hand through her curls. The tugging against her scalp helped her ground herself enough to continue. "I don't want to have to make any of those decisions! You have to understand, I'm not _supposed_ to be part of this story. If I try to change something, I might make it worse. Or worse! I might screw things up just by _being_ here!"

Cass froze at that thought, and then sighed heavily.

"God, I already have. You two aren't even supposed to be together right now. _You_ ," she pointed at Bobby, "should still be in mourning, and _you_ ," she pointed at Sam, "should still be in denial, making increasingly bad decisions."

"Hey!" Sam said, indignant. Cass ignored him.

" _God_ , what do I do?"

Cass stiffened suddenly. She'd said the word because she was a bad ex-Catholic atheist who used religious phrases as expletives, but here… here, there was a God. And she knew his name.

Cass set down the glass of whiskey with a loud _clack_ and darted for the stairs.

"Cass?" Bobby sounded worried. "What are you—"

"I need to—" Cass halted for half a second at the bottom of the stairs to come up with an excuse. "I need to think! Just... leave me alone for a while!"

And then she was taking the stairs two at a time before either of them could answer, running into the guest room and locking the door behind her before sliding into a kneeling position at the edge of the bed. She clasped her hands tightly together, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

"Dear heavenly Chuck, I know you're out there. And I know you're not really in the prayer-answering business right now, but please—you've got to send me home. Please. Please, please, please, send me home."

Cass peeked her eyes open. The room was quiet and utterly unchanged. Cass felt panic constricting her chest.

"Answer me, damn it! Or I'll—" Cass fumbled for what to say. "I'll track you down through your publisher and show up on your doorstep!"

"You know, I get a lot of prayers, but very few people actually try to _threaten_ me."

Cass barely managed not to scream, but she did fall backwards onto the floor. There was Chuck, leaning on the windowsill with his arms folded and looking not very amused.

"Hi, Cass."

"Chuck." For all that she'd been hoping he would answer, she was still surprised that he had. Or rather, still surprised that he existed. Because… well, _God_. Cass swallowed hard and pushed herself back up onto her knees. "You've got to send me home. _Please_."

"You know," he said slowly, casually, "I don't think I will."

Cass stared, her heart pounding in her ears. "But I'm not supposed to be here! This isn't how the story is supposed to play out!"

"I'm not really in the business of deciding how the story is going to play out, anymore, either," Chuck said, shrugging carelessly. "But I _am_ interested to see how it goes."

"So, what, you're going to keep me here for your _amusement_?" Cass said, voice thick with disbelief.

"I'm not _keeping_ you here," Chuck said tiredly, rolling his eyes upward as if he could ask himself for patience. "I'm just not helping you leave. You're completely free to try to find your own way home." Chuck paused, then added, "Of course, you're more likely to scatter your atoms across the multiverse and trap your soul between dimensions than to succeed, but…"

"Scatter my atoms?!..." Cass repeated, eyes wide.

"Look, this isn't me closing a door and opening a window," Chuck explained, waving a hand. "The door closed behind you all on its own, and yeah, I'm not gonna open it back up for you. But there _is_ a window here, one that _you_ can open, if you want to."

"I think I can see why your book series never took off," Cass said flatly. Her fear and disbelief was quickly transforming into bitter rebellion. "What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that you can change the story," Chuck said slowly, seemingly deciding to ignore the comment about his writing. "You're part of it now, whether you like it or not. And you can use that foreknowledge, or not. It's up to you."

"So, opening the window in this scenario means me trying to change the story," Cass summarized. Chuck nodded. "If that's allowed—if there's nothing stopping me from telling people the future, or changing future events—then what's stopping me from telling the Winchesters who and where you are? Or Heaven, for that matter?"

"Now that, you shouldn't do." Chuck said the words lightly, but there was an underlying steel to them that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.

Still, she asked, "Why not?"

"Because if you do," Chuck snapped his fingers, the sound loud in the small room, and Cass flinched. "You're cursed. You'll be a _real_ Cassandra, then. You can tell all the secrets you want, about me or anything else, and no one will ever believe you."

"Why?!" Cass's voice was rising. She didn't care anymore if Bobby or Sam would hear her. "Why are you doing this?!"

"I'm not _doing_ anything," Chuck insisted, his eyes dark. "You know, this is the problem with humanity. You're always asking me to do everything for you. 'God, grant me strength.' 'God, bless the crops.' 'God, cure the sick.'" Chuck shook his head in disgust. "I don't _owe_ you anything. I _made_ you. I made the _universe_! If you spent more time solving your own problems and less time begging me to solve them for you, you'd be colonizing Mars already."

"But you just said I'd scatter my atoms across the multiverse if I tried to get home on my own!"

"I said it's _likely_ ," Chuck said with another roll of his eyes, as if that was somehow a significant distinction. "You're free to try. That's your decision: try to go home, and risk utterly undoing yourself; or, stay here, and try to make the best of what you've got."

"And risk completely altering the timeline," said Cass. "I don't want to have that kind of responsibility."

Chuck's eyes softened a little, but his voice was firm. "You can't always get what you want."

Cass jolted awake with a start. She was half-lying, half-kneeling on Bobby's guest bed, as if she'd simply drifted off to sleep mid-prayer. But she was sure her conversation with Chuck hadn't been a dream. She could feel it in her soul, somehow, but more than that, the radio had turned itself on, and it was taunting her with the Rolling Stones.

" _You can't always get what you want… But if you try sometimes, you just might find… you get what you need!_ "

Cass rolled to her feet with a cry of anger and yanked the radio's plug. The force of it knocked the thing to the ground, but it was still playing music, so Cass stomped on it, over and over. Her feet were bare and the plastic cut her feet as it broke into sharp pieces, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She stomped on the damn thing until it finally fell silent and the only sound left in the room was her own wild, heavy breathing.

And then she sank to her knees and cried.

* * *

Cass woke before dawn the next morning. She'd cried herself to sleep in the early evening and slept for close to twelve hours, and now she lay awake, unable to go back to sleep, staring at the ceiling. She felt drained, empty. She'd poured out all her anger and grief, and now she was left feeling blank and defeated.

She was stuck.

She was stuck here, and there was no getting home. She was stuck here, and the Apocalypse was coming.

For the first time since arriving Cass seriously contemplated changing the story, but she had no idea where to begin. Dean breaking the first seal was the first step, the first seal in the sixty six holding Lucifer in his cage. Once he broke it, it would be basically impossible to stop the apocalypse. If she could somehow save Dean early and stop the first seal from breaking, _maybe_ she could stop the Apocalypse before it started. No one would have to die, and Sam Winchester wouldn't have to jump into the pit to return Lucifer to his cage. But she didn't see how she could possibly pull something like that off.

Both the angels and the demons were rooting for Dean to break the first seal, and only an angel could pull Dean out. Castiel did it before, but only on the orders of heaven. If, by some means, Cass could contact him, there was a not insignificant possibility that he would not believe her. Worse, there was a possibility that he might bring her and her foreknowledge to the attention of other angels, and Cass had no illusions about what an angel might do to get the knowledge in her head.

Gabriel was the only other angel on earth right now that she could think of, and he wasn't a safe bet, either. He was all set for the Apocalypse to happen at first, and even if he wasn't, he was in hiding. He wouldn't want to sacrifice thousands of years of 'witness protection' just to pull Dean Winchester out of the pit a few months early.

Who else was there? Cass closed her eyes and tried to think back to all the angels she'd ever seen on Supernatural. There was Castiel, of course. Uriel, the angel in Castiel's garrison who turned out to be a traitor. All the archangels—Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, and Gabriel. There was Metatron, from later seasons, and Gadreel, and Naomi. There had been another female angel earlier on, Cass thought, and racked her brains, trying to remember who it was. It took a minute for her to come up with the name, and once she did, she sat up, eyes wide.

" _Anna_."

Anna was the angel who fell, who ripped out her own grace and was living as a human right now. If any angel would be willing to save Dean early, to stop the Apocalypse before it started, it would be her.

Cass hurtled out of bed and rushed down the stairs and into Bobby's living room. Both he and Sam were awake, and they looked up at her sudden entrance with startled, slightly wary looks. Heart pounding, Cass opened her mouth to tell them—

And then she shut her mouth with a clack and made a beeline for Bobby's bookshelf, searching frantically for any titles that mentioned angels or heaven.

"Cass?" Bobby asked. "What the hell are you doin'?"

"Looking for warding sigils," she said shortly. She did not look away from the bookshelves, pulling out all the books she'd noted before that mentioned angels and making a stack on the coffee table.

"Warding?" Bobby repeated.

"Against what?" Sam asked, moving forward cautiously to examine the growing pile of books on the table. "And why?"

"I'll tell you once the sigils are up." Done pulling books, Cass sat down on the couch and began flipping quickly through pages, looking for any sigils that would ward against angelic intrusion or spying. She did not want to risk that Sam and Bobby were already being watched and listened to, or that anything she was about to reveal might catch the attention of Heaven.

Sam and Bobby were looking at the titles of all the books she'd piled on the table with puzzled frowns.

" _Ang—_ " Sam didn't finish the word, eyes wide as the pillow Cass had just thrown at him bounced off of his head.

"Not. Until. The sigils. Are up," Cass hissed.

Sam held his hands up in surrender and kept his mouth obediently shut. It was Bobby who ultimately found the correct symbols. Sam fetched paint from the shed out back, and the three of them spent the next fifteen minutes painstakingly recreating symbols to ward against angelic intrusion and listening.

"Is this good enough?" Sam asked, once all the sigils Bobby had identified had been painted on the walls.

Cass sighed. "I don't know. I hope so."

"You wanna tell me why we just warded my house with every sigil known to protect against _angels_?" Bobby demanded, setting down his paintbrush.

Cass ran a hand through her hair tiredly. She hadn't thought of how she was going to actually start this conversation. Finally, instead of answering Bobby's question directly, she said, "I've thought of a way to save Dean. It… may or may not be a _bad_ idea."

"You said we couldn't save Dean," Sam said immediately, tone skeptical. "You said we had to wait until September, for whatever's supposed to happen."

"Yes, I did say that," Cass allowed. "That's how it happens in the show. But I've thought of something that might work, to get him out sooner."

"You're talkin' about changing the future," Bobby said slowly. Cass nodded. "You sure that's wise?"

"The way I see it, I've already irreversibly altered the timeline just by being here," Cass explained, grimacing. "I'll probably change even more completely by accident, just by _existing_. So, since I'm stuck here, and since I know what's going to happen… I'd rather take the risk of changing things than sit back and do nothing."

Cass sighed and crossed the room to curl up in a corner of Bobby's couch, settling in for a long, tiring conversation.

"So. I'm going to tell you what's supposed to happen, and then I'll tell you my idea." Cass paused, then added sternly, "I should warn you that you're not going to like what I have to say, but I'll appreciate it if you could not shout denials at me or tell me that what I'm about to say is impossible."

Bobby and Sam exchanged glances. Bobby turned and entered the kitchen—Cass assumed he would bring back coffee, but was proven wrong when he returned with a half-full bottle of whiskey.

"Bobby, it's 7:30 in the morning," Sam said as Bobby set the bottle on the coffee table.

"You don't have to have any, then," Bobby said easily. "But I'm betting this is a story I don't wanna hear sober. So." He looked between Sam and Cass. "How many glasses am I fetching?"

"Three," Cass said tiredly, before Sam could answer. To Sam she said, "You'll want it."

Cass waited for Bobby to return with the glasses and pour a little bit of whiskey into each glass. Then she took hers and swirled it, watching the movement of the liquid as she said, "Dean's time in Hell is the first of 66 seals that mark the beginning of the Apocalypse."

Bobby choked on his first sip of whiskey. Sam, who hadn't touched his, said, " _What?_ "

"The Apocalypse," Cass repeated blandly.

"The Apocalypse." Bobby cleared his throat hard. " _The_ Apocalypse? Like, _Revelations_ Apocalypse?"

"Yes," Cass confirmed. "Four Horsemen, Lucifer walks the earth, full-on war between Heaven and Hell. _The_ Apocalypse."

Bobby sighed and held up a finger, indicating that she should wait while he knocked back the rest of the whiskey in his glass, then refilled it. When that was done he sighed, sat back, and nodded.

"Go on."

"In order for the apocalypse to start, Lucifer has to be released from Hell," Cass explained. "Right now, he's trapped down there, locked in the cage he's been in since he fell. The 66 seals are like locks on his cage; each seal breaks one of the barriers keeping him inside. I say 66, but there's actually more—there's actually hundreds of potential seals, but only 66 need to be broken to release him."

"And Dean going to Hell—" Bobby said, leaning forward with a furrowed brow. "That's the first seal?"

"No. Not going to Hell," Cass said. "The first seal breaks when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell."

"Sheds blood?" Sam repeated. He had picked up his own whiskey by now, but had not actually drank any, instead clutching the glass in a white-knuckled grip. "What does that mean?"

Cass took a moment to deliberate how to answer that question, and ultimately decided that Sam didn't need to know about the torture his brother's soul was currently enduring and the horrible offer being presented to him by Alastair.

"It means we still have time before the seal breaks," Cass said simply. "I don't know when, exactly, it happens. I think it's around the three month mark, which means we have maybe until mid-August."

"So in this show," Bobby cut in. "Dean gets out after the seal is broken?"

"Yes." Cass took a sip of whiskey and then, after making sure that neither Bobby nor Sam were mid-swallow, revealed, "An angel pulls him out."

"An _angel_." Bobby still sounded skeptical, but not surprised. Which made sense, considering all the sigils they'd just painted on his walls.

"Yes." Cass swirled her whiskey around, lips twisting. "The thing is, Heaven… aren't the good guys."

Cass hesitated before her next words. When she continued speaking, she did so carefully.

"God… is not in the picture. He's not in heaven, and he hasn't been for thousands of years. So the angels are under the command of the archangel Michael, and to a lesser extent the archangel Raphael. And they're… not big on humans. Most angels aren't, actually, Some of them like us and want to protect us, but a lot of them just don't care, or even outright dislike us. Michael and Raphael, they act like they're trying to stop the apocalypse, but in reality they want it to happen as much as Lucifer and all of Hell do. They're itching to finally have it out with each other. It's why no one's sent to save Dean until _after_ the seal is broken."

"If they hate us so much," Sam asked, voice rough, "why do they pull Dean out at all?"

"Because they need him," Cass said gravely. "Angels can't walk the earth without a human vessel. They're like demons that way, except they need the consent of the host. Unlike demons, though, not just any human can host an angel—some people just aren't built to hold that kind of power. Angels have to be more selective to find the right vessel, or the human they're possessing will… burn out. Or explode."

Bobby winced. Sam's hand tightened even further on his glass, so much so that Cass was beginning to worry that he'd break it.

"So, what, you're saying Dean's a vessel?" he asked.

"Not just any vessel," said Cass. "He's _Michael's_ vessel. So if Michael wants to throw an apocalypse and kick Lucifer's ass, he needs Dean."

Cass decided that now was not the time to tell them that, if Dean did not agree to be Michael's vessel, then Michael could always use the younger half-brother they didn't currently know about as a back-up option.

"But the stories say Lucifer was an archangel, too," Bobby said, brow furrowing. "Which means he'll also need a vessel. So just whose ass is getting kicked?"

Cass grimaced. She'd hoped she wouldn't have to talk about this, but there was no avoiding it. She took another sip of whiskey, for bravery.

"Sam's."

" _What_?" Bobby and Sam said it in unison.

"You're Lucifer's vessel," she said gently, directing her words to Sam as she told him apologetically, "There's supposed some kind of poetic symmetry to it, I think. Michael, the older brother who faithfully obeyed his father's orders, and Lucifer, the younger brother, who rebelled against him…"

"I'm supposed to be Lucifer's meat suit?!" Sam's face contorted with a mix of emotions, so fast Cass couldn't possibly guess what he was feeling. After a moment he seemed to settle on grim rage. " _Ruby_. That's why she's hanging around, isn't it? Why she's been trying to help me?"

"Yes." Cass nodded. "And I recommend you kill her the next time she shows up. All the 'help' she's trying to offer you is designed to nudge you into breaking seals, releasing Lucifer, and becoming his vessel."

"Dean was right." Sam leaned forward, staring at his own hands as his lips curled with disgust. "What is _wrong_ with me?"

"It ain't gonna come to that," Bobby said sharply to Sam. "She said angels need consent to possess someone, didn't she? You're not gonna let the Devil inside you, Sam."

Bobby turned to Cass then, and she tried to school her face enough that Bobby would not guess that she _had_ seen Sam say 'yes' to Lucifer.

"Besides, if I'm hearin' you right, you're saying we can stop all this if we can save Dean before this first seal breaks."

Cass nodded.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Sam asked hopelessly. "It took an angel to save him, and you said they're all waiting for the seal to break."

"Not _all_ of them," Cass corrected. "Just most. There are some angels out there who like us and want to protect us. There's one angel I can think of who might be willing and able to help us pull Dean out early. But getting her help will be... complicated."

"Complicated, how?" Bobby asked, voice thick with trepidation.

"Because she fell from grace and is currently under the impression that she's an ordinary journalism student."

Sam sighed gustily and finally gave in, knocking back the whiskey in one swallow. Bobby finished his as well and then topped them all off.

"Alright then. What's the plan?"


	5. Dead in a Month

Pamela Barnes was a _very_ attractive woman. Cass found herself admiring the low cut of her tank top as she climbed out of her old Volkswagen, and wished that she herself was wearing something more flattering than basketball shorts and an oversized flannel knotted at the waist.

"Bobby Singer." Pamela smiled warmly. "You're lucky I like you. I don't usually make house calls."

"Pamela," Bobby greeted her just as warmly. "You're a sight for sore eyes. We've got kind of a sensitive issue, and I figured you wouldn't want protective sigils all over your walls."

Bobby ushered Pamela inside, and when she saw said sigils she let out a low whistle.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Her eyes continued scanning the room, landing on Sam next, who she sized up with a flirtatious little smile. "Ah. You must be Sam. And you…" Pamela turned to look at Cass then, her flirty smile dropping into a puzzled frown. Slowly, Pamela said, " _You're_ not from around here."

"Cass Holmes," Cass said helpfully. "We're hoping you can help us prevent the apocalypse."

Pamela's eyebrows shot up, and she glanced back at Bobby, who nodded gravely. "I'm listening."

An hour later, they were all sat in Bobby's living room, beers in hand. Cass had steadily stripped the labels off of two bottles as she caught Pamela up on everything: who she was, what had happened so far, and what was going to happen if they couldn't save Dean. And, finally, what they would need her to do if they wanted to put a stop to everything before it began.

"This is crazy," Pamela said, shaking her head. "This is _too_ crazy. I don't want to get mixed up in the end of the world."

"If you don't help us, you're gonna get mixed up in the end of the world anyway," Sam pointed out sensibly. Pamela shot him an unimpressed look.

"We're not asking you to fight angels and demons," Bobby said, trying to placate her. "We just need you to refresh an angel's memory."

"And how do you expect me to do that?" Pamela folded her arms. "I'd need to be close to her, put her in a trance, talk her through it… how are you gonna convince her to uncover those memories?"

Bobby and Sam turned to Cass, who shrugged and shook her head. Sam furrowed his brows at her. "The future you've seen, you said Pamela uncovered her memories before, right?"

"Yes, but at the time, Anna had already been having visions and hearing the voices of angels," Cass explained. "She was pretty on-board to find out what was going on. Right now, she's just a normal college student."

"So how, exactly, are you going to convince her to let me hypnotize her?" Pamela asked expectantly.

Bobby and Sam exchanged glances. Sam asked cautiously, "Is _convincing_ her really necessary?"

" _Yes_ ," Pamela said emphatically. "Look, I don't care what you hunters do in your spare time, but _I_ draw the line at kidnapping."

"We'll figure something out," Cass promised.

Pamela eyed her skeptically, but didn't offer up any further protest. Instead, she stood and stretched. Cass's eyes traveled automatically to the bit of skin the movement revealed and offered a silent thanks to whatever genius came up with low-rise jeans. Pamela, catching Cass's appreciative gaze, winked at her before she turned toward Bobby.

"Well," she said, "Since I'm here, maybe you can tell me why my car starts making ominous noises when it gets over 65."

"Probably 'cause it's a piece of junk. But I can take a look at it."

He followed Pamela out front to take a look at her car, and Cass watched until Pamela was out of sight before rubbing her lips thoughtfully. She turned to Sam, who she found giving her an odd look.

"Let me see your computer?"

"What for?" Sam asked, fetching it from across the room and handing it to her. Cass accepted it and sat on the couch, balancing the laptop on criss-crossed legs.

"I'm gonna cyber stalk Anna Milton," Cass explained, pulling up a browser and starting to snoop. "It's summer, so I assume—yes, she's living with her parents right now. Journalism internship, unpaid… hmm."

"What?" Sam asked, intrigued by Cass's thoughtful hum. Cass looked up from the computer and pitched him her idea.

"It's not that unusual for college students to be asked to participate in research studies in return for a couple bucks or a gift card," she explained. "It shouldn't be _too_ hard to create an email from a 'faculty member' about a study on hypnosis. What do you think would make it worth the time of an incoming sophomore with an unpaid internship? Fifty bucks? A hundred?"

"It's worth a shot," Sam said, nodding.

Cass nodded back, then turned back to the computer, getting to work. After a minute she noticed Sam leaning over the back of the couch, trying to get a look at the screen. Cass raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you mind?"

"Sorry," Sam said. "I'm just trying to see what you're doing."

Cass patted the seat next to her on the couch and propped the computer on the arm so Sam could look at the screen without looming over her like an enormous gargoyle.

"First, I'm going to decide whether I can impersonate an existing faculty member, or if I'll have to invent one," Cass explained. "Then I'm going to use those credentials to send out an email to Anna—an impersonal one, so it looks like it was BCC'ed in a batch to a bunch of different students. And then, once Anna hopefully accepts the invitation to the 'experiment', I'm going to reserve a room on campus so we have an official-looking space to do this in."

Cass fell quiet, clicking quickly around between Anna's social media and various pages on the university website, particularly in the psychology department. "Here we go," she said, satisfied. "Adjunct psych professor with no profile picture or personal website. Just enough presence to look legit, but little enough presence that we're unlikely to be caught in the impersonation."

"They teach you all this at the FBI?" Sam asked, half-curious, half-impressed.

"No, not really," Cass admitted. "I mostly taught myself, because I was bored in high school. I've never actually done anything this shady before, though I suppose I'll have to get used to it."

That last comment was added absent-mindedly, matter-of-fact, while she typed furiously. She had enough time to gain access to the adjunct's account before Sam said slowly, "What do you mean?" Cass glanced over to Sam and found him giving her a puzzled frown.

"Because I don't exist," she said, surprised herself that he hadn't already realized. "Apocalypse stuff aside, I'd have a tough time integrating into normal society here. You need documentation for that sort of thing—a social security number, school transcripts, medical records… you know, the stuff you have when you're a real person. Fake IDs might work to get you onto crime scenes, but they're liable to be caught if you're using them for employment purposes."

"I hadn't thought about that." Sam looked stricken, soon colored by just a tinge of shame. He swallowed hard, but maintained painful eye contact as he said sincerely, "I'm sorry."

Cass glanced away, uncomfortable at the eye contact and the sentiment. She wasn't sure how to respond to either of those things, so instead she said nothing. She couldn't exactly say 'it's okay', or 'you're forgiven', because neither of those things were really true. She'd very much prefer to _not_ be in this universe, and honestly, she was still a little bitter about it. Her world might have problems, but it didn't have _literal_ monsters.

"Cass?"

She glanced back again and regretted it immediately. He was making the sad puppy dog face, like he was physically pained at the idea that she was upset with him, and was simultaneously desperate to make things right. Cass pressed her lips together and turned away from the computer to face him head-on.

"Tell me this, Sam," she said flatly. "If you could go back in time, knowing what you do now, and stop yourself from summoning me, would you?"

Sam furrowed his brow. Opened his mouth. Hesitated. Closed it.

"That's what I thought." Cass started to turn back to the computer.

"But it's not just about saving Dean anymore," Sam said hastily. "I mean, knowing what I know now… can you really blame me for wanting to stop the Apocalypse?"

"No," Cass allowed, but added without an ounce of doubt, "But you'd have done it just for Dean, anyway."

Sam was quiet for a breath. "Yeah," he admitted finally, sounding beat. "You're right. I would have. But that doesn't mean I'm not sorry for basically ruining your life. I am." Sam leaned forward, and Cass reluctantly looked back at him. She did not like being under the full power of his sad green eyes. "I'll do whatever I can to make it up to you."

"Let's just… work on stopping the Apocalypse." Cass turned back to the computer and got back to work, doing her best to ignore the way Sam's face fell. Sam's emotions weren't her responsibility, and it wasn't her job to make him feel better about, as he put it, basically ruining her life. If Sam wanted to have a heart-to-heart with someone, he could damn well wait until they pulled his brother out of Hell.

"There. Email sent. I've included a deadline that should hopefully get her to reply quickly." She sighed and closed the laptop. "For now, we wait."

"Okay." Sam cleared his throat and seemed to make an effort to follow her lead and pretend the awkward, emotional exchange hadn't happened. "You, uh… want another beer?"

"Yeah, sure," Cass relented, and smiled a little, hoping to demonstrate that she did not actually _hate_ Sam, for all that she was not at all pleased with her current predicament. "Thanks."

Sam returned with two more beers, and once he handed one to her, he lifted his own bottle toward hers with a tentative smile. "To saving Gandalf?"

"To saving Dean." Cass clinked her bottle with his and took a sip. Then she added, trying to add a little levity, "Though, I'm trying to think of this less like saving one particular character, and more like hopping on a giant eagle to Mordor and dropping the ring directly into Mount Doom. Nip the problem in the bud, you know?" Sam was frowning at her, which was the opposite of what she'd intended. Cass frowned herself and asked, "What?"

"You said 'character'." Sam looked troubled, and maybe even a little hurt. "Is that really all we are to you?"

"No!" She denied immediately. "Of course not. When I said 'character' I meant Gandalf, not Dean."

"But it's the same, isn't it?" Sam pushed. "Our lives are just a story to you."

Cass wasn't sure what he wanted her to say to that. There wasn't much she could do if the fact that his life was just a television show in her universe sparked an existential crisis for him. But she tried her best, regardless.

"I mean, they _were_ , but not anymore. This is real life now to me just as much as it is to you. That's why I'm trying to change what's supposed to happen. I'm trying to do the right thing, because I know what's coming, and I know that a lot of people are going to die because of it. _People_ , Sam. Not characters."

"Right." Sam did look marginally reassured. He looked down at the bottle in his hands and twirled in thoughtfully as he said, "Do you really think this'll work? Do you think this… this _angel_ , will help us?"

"I'm pretty optimistic, yeah." She sipped her beer. "She's the only angel I know of who's squarely on the side of humanity right now. I mean, she ripped out her own grace and fell to earth because she wanted to live as a human. That's about as pro-humanity as you can get, so… yeah. I think she'll help."

"And that's it?" Sam asked, arching his eyebrows. "Dean's saved, apocalypse averted?"

"When is anything in your life ever that simple?" Cass asked dryly. Sam's face fell, and she explained, "I don't know what'll happen after we save Dean. That's not the story I saw. But I do know that both heaven and hell are waiting for your brother to break, because they _want_ the apocalypse to happen. That's not gonna go away just because we save your brother."

"But you said they needed Dean to break the first seal," Sam said, brow furrowing. "If he never breaks it, they can't do anything, right?"

"I don't think they need Dean in particular," Cass said carefully. "The first seal breaks when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. I think they were hoping it would break when your Dad went down there, but it didn't. I don't know how many righteous men are getting sent to Hell—probably not many—but if they managed to get Dean to do it, it wouldn't surprise me if they found someone else."

"So really we're just buying time."

"And saving your brother," Cass reminded him. "But yeah. I think we are."

"But before, you said everything works out alright," Sam said cautiously. "So we have to have stopped the seals somehow."

"No, you didn't," Cass said gently. "They were all broken, and Lucifer was released. You beat him in the end, but… well, let's just hope it won't come to that."

"What? What is it?"

Cass shook her head. She wasn't about to tell him that _he_ was Lucifer's vessel, and that he had to let Lucifer into his body and then jump into the pit to save the world. If their plan worked, it would never have to come to that. There was no need putting needlessly dangerous thoughts into Sam's head when he had such a stubborn self-sacrificial streak.

"There's no point worrying about it right now. Just, trust me on that, okay? If Lucifer does get released, I'll come up with some other way to beat him. I've got ten plus seasons of information rattling around up here, it's gotta be good for something."

Sam furrowed his brow again. "I thought you said there were fifteen seasons."

"I did," Cass agreed, wincing. "But the last couple were _really_ bad, so I stopped watching."

Sam shook his head in amazement. "I still can't believe my life is bad television." Cass decided not to tell him that, in this universe, his life was also a bad series of pulpy books. "But it's nice to know we'll all still be alive in ten years."

"Don't get cocky, Winchester," Cass warned, pointing her beer bottle at him sternly. "If you start making stupid mistakes because you just assume you'll live through them, you'll get yourself killed. We're changing everything that's supposed to happen. For all I know, you could be dead in a month."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'm _serious_ , Sam," Cass leaned forward imploringly. "The more things change, the less reliable my foreknowledge becomes. You _have_ to be careful."

"I will," Sam said, and then, when Cass kept staring, unconvinced, he said, "I promise. Alright?"

"Alright." She sat back and took a swig of beer, kicking up her legs onto the coffee table. She frowned at the gym shorts she was wearing. "I'm gonna need to buy some real clothes if I'm gonna pretend to be a psych professor. And probably an anti-possession tattoo, too, now that I think about it…"

"You?" Sam asked, surprised. "Why not me, or Bobby?"

"I don't think either of you really looks like a Miranda," she said. Then, at Sam's blank look, explained, "The account I borrowed, it belongs to 'Dr. Miranda Dinkley.'"

"Fair enough," Sam nodded. "I can drive you into town tomorrow for some shopping. We'll have to get you your own things anyway, I guess, now that you're… staying."

There was a clatter then as the door opened and Pamela and Bobby entered. "Did I hear the word 'shopping'?" Pamela's eyes fixed on Cass, and she shook her head slowly. "Oh, no. Sweetie, you're coming with me. Now."

Cass smiled, amused. "Are you that horrified by the flannel, or are you just trying to watch me undress?"

Pamela didn't even blink. "Why not both?" She tipped a wink at Sam. "You could come too, Sam. I'd love to get you out of those old clothes."

"Uh, no, thanks," Sam said quickly, clearing his throat. Cass didn't think she was imagining the light pink tinge creeping into his cheeks. "You two… you two have fun."

Pamela eyed Cass up and down for a moment, then held up a finger. "Wait here." She turned and went back out the front door, headed towards her car. Bobby, meanwhile, began to rummage in a drawer.

"Here, Cass." Bobby tossed something at her, and she snapped her hand out to catch it before whatever it was could smack her in the face. Opening her hand, she found that it was an anti-possession charm. "I assume you know what that is?"

Cass nodded, pulling the charm over her head. She was grateful he'd thought of it. She'd feel a lot better about leaving Bobby's well-warded house with the charm around her neck, at least until she could get that tattoo. Pamela returned soon enough with a bundle of clothes in her arms, which she pushed toward Cass.

"Here," she said, "put these on so the store clerks don't think you're a ragamuffin I found on the street."

Cass couldn't take offense at the comment. Frankly, she was eager to wear anything but years-old hand-me-downs from teenage boys. She darted upstairs to change.

Pamela was only about an inch taller than Cass, but she was slimmer, despite all her curves. It was fortunate that the low-rise black jeans Pamela had tossed her had plenty of stretch, or Cass wouldn't have been able to get them over her hips. The grey tank top, likewise, was bordering on too tight—but to Cass's relief, Pamela had also loaned her a sports bra, which minimized the problem. Cass practically skipped down the stairs, feeling much better now that she didn't look like she'd been stealing clothes from the closet of a seventeen year old boy from 1997.

"Much better," Pamela said once Cass had reappeared, eyes lingering appreciatively on the way the jeans clung to Cass's hips. "You ready?"

"Yes," Cass said enthusiastically, slipping on the pair of flip-flops Pamela handed her. They were ever-so-slightly too short, but far better than attempting to go shopping barefoot. None of the few pairs of old, ratty tennis shoes littering the floor of Bobby's guest room closet had ever come close to fitting her, so Cass had been going barefoot for over two weeks.

Pamela drove them to the nearest mall, which was about thirty minutes away. They didn't break 65 miles per hour on the way, though, so Cass wasn't sure if Bobby had managed to fix whatever 'ominous noises' Pamela had been complaining about.

"So," Pamela said brightly as she drove. "Whole new wardrobe, courtesy of good old hunter credit card fraud. What's our first stop?"

"Bras," Cass said firmly. She hadn't ever thought she'd miss them this much, but she'd felt very self-conscious without access to them in mixed company for so long.

"Done."

The afternoon turned into a rather long four-hour shopping spree, during which Cass wondered whether she should feel more guilty about credit card fraud, and began to appreciate Pamela's sly, quick-witted, incredibly flirtatious humor. By the time they left the last shop several hours later, Cass had indeed acquired a whole new wardrobe. She had not only sufficient clothes to pretend to be an adjunct psychology professor, but also plenty of essentials, including some sturdy boots and several tops in dark colors, on which blood stains would be much less noticeable. She also had her own bras and underwear for the first time in weeks, some body wash that smelled like vanilla instead of manly spices, and even a small arsenal of make-up for the rare times she wore it.

Cass changed into some of the new purchases in the mall bathroom and returned the borrowed clothes to Pamela. Pamela accepted the shirt, bra, and flip flops, but pushed the jeans back into Cass's hands. "You keep those."

"Are you sure?" Cass asked uncertainly. "They're yours. And they're a little tight—"

"In all the right ways, honey." Cass felt heat rising to her cheeks, but tucked the jeans into her shopping bags. Pamela smiled, satisfied.

On the drive back, Cass asked curiously, "What's it like, being a psychic?"

"What, I didn't monologue about it on that show of yours?"

"You were only in a couple of episodes," Cass explained. "I never got a glimpse of what daily life is like for you, or even what you can really do." It probably wasn't best to tell her that she died helping the Winchesters.

"Is that so?" Pamela glanced at her, and Cass held her breath, hoping she wouldn't somehow sense that last thought. "Well, it's kind of like an extra sense. Some people call it the second sight, but it's more like touch. I feel energies, and emotions." Pamela shook her head wryly. "I don't know if that's helpful to you. I feel like I'm trying to describe the smell of a rose to someone who can't smell."

"What else?" Cass asked. "I saw you do a sort of seance, and I think at one point you did some kind of astral projection spell. Any other specialized tricks up your sleeve?"

"Seances are a specialty, yeah," Pamela said. "And hypnosis, but you know that one already. I don't usually mess around with astral projection." Pamela shot Cass a concerned look. "It can get dangerous."

Cass hummed thoughtfully, then straightened as an idea struck her. "How effective is your hypnosis at uncovering memories?"

Pamela raised an eyebrow. "I thought you knew."

"Not for Anna—" Cass said quickly. "I've already seen you do that. I'm talking about _me_. There's a lot of information rattling around inside my head, but a lot of it's out of order. I've forgotten a lot more than I remember, and some of that stuff's probably important."

"So you want me to refresh your memory," Pamela said. Cass nodded. "Yeah, I can help with that."

* * *

Bobby's front porch faced east. Cass woke early and made coffee, then took up a spot on Bobby's front steps, watching the sky get lighter. Bobby joined her when the sky was orange.

"How're you holdin' up?"

Bobby was watching her cautiously. It had been two days now since he'd told her he couldn't find a way to get her home. The first day had been spent hatching the plan to save Dean, and the second had been spent convincing Pamela to help. Now there was nothing to do but work through her memories and wait to see if Anna took the bait, and Bobby was watching Cass cautiously, like he was afraid she might have a breakdown at any minute.

He wasn't necessarily wrong to think so, either. Still, Cass shrugged. "I'll be better once Pamela wakes up… I don't like being idle."

Pamela had still been sleeping peacefully when Cass got up. She'd surrendered the room's bed to Pamela in favor of a roll-away mattress, figuring it was the least she could do, considering the huge favor Pamela was doing for them. Cass had crept out of the room quietly, leaving her to enjoy her rest for a while longer.

"I figure you've got another four hours at least," Bobby said with a sigh. "I've never known that woman to wake up before 10am." Cass grimaced, wondering what she would do to distract herself for that long. "If you really want a distraction, I wouldn't say no to an extra set of hands," said Bobby.

"For what?"

"Cleanin' parts." Bobby nodded towards the workshop at the back of his house, which Cass had not entered so far.

"You can have them, but I don't know how useful they'll be," Cass warned him. "I've never even changed a tire."

Bobby grumbled about 'city people', but after they finished their coffee, Bobby walked Cass through the shop and gave her some simple work to occupy her hands. They worked, and listened to the radio, and it was just the sort of thing Cass needed to occupy herself so she wouldn't drown in her own thoughts—thoughts about what was coming, about what could go wrong, about the fact that she'd never get home.

Pamela found them at half past nine, earlier than Bobby had predicted, though she still looked a little sleep-rumpled.

"Bobby Singer." Pamela folded her arms and cocked one hip to the side, playfully disapproving. "I can't believe you put this poor girl to work already."

"I volunteered," Cass told her. "I needed something to occupy myself with while you slept the day away." Then, dryly, she asked, "Did you get enough beauty sleep?"

"You tell me," Pamela said with a devious smile. Cass shook her head, though she couldn't help smiling back.

"You're incorrigible."

"You like it," Pamela said confidently. "Come on, hot stuff, let's take this upstairs."

Cass washed up and changed out of the work coveralls she'd borrowed. Before meeting Pamela back in the guest bedroom, she also rummaged through Bobby's drawers until she found a blank notepad and a pen. When she entered, Cass found that Pamela had made the bed and piled pillows at the head of it, presumably so Cass could recline semi-upright. The roll-away bed had been tucked away, and Pamela was sitting in a chair she must have procured from elsewhere in the house.

"Ready?" Pamela asked, patting the bed invitingly. Cass sank onto it, stomach tight with nerves.

"How is this going to work?"

Pamela smiled reassuringly. "I'll guide you into a hypnotic state, and from there I'll help you draw the memories forward. I've done it dozens of times. You have nothing to worry about."

"Can we take breaks, or something, so I can take notes?" Cass tapped the notepad clutched tightly in her hands. "Unless you can flip some switch in my brain that gives me impeccable memory, I'll just forget this stuff again unless I write it down."

"Sorry, babe. No such switch," Pamela said. "But you can take notes while you're in the trance. I'll tell you to note down anything important as I guide you through your memories. No promises on the quality of your handwriting, though."

"Great. Thanks."

"You ready?" Pamela waited, and Cass gave her a shrug and a nod. "Okay. I want you to close your eyes… breathe in slowly… and then out… relax…"

Cass woke with a small start. All the memories of seasons four and five were still fresh in her mind, almost disorientingly so.

"I hope that chicken scratch makes sense to you," Pamela said doubtfully.

Cass blinked and looked down, finding the pen still clutched loosely in her hand. The notepad contained pages and pages of notes, and to Cass's delight, her subconscious mind, or whatever part of her had been in charge of writing, had had the forethought to do so in code. The letters on the page were mostly Russian Cyrillic, but the words and grammar were a mix of different languages. Cass scanned it critically and found that she could indeed decipher it, although as Pamela had promised, there were instances when her penmanship was rather lacking.

"It mostly does." Cass furrowed her brow at the last few lines, then raised an eyebrow at Pamela. "Did you seriously ask me about sports scores?"

"What?" Pamela said innocently. "Reading palms doesn't exactly make me the big bucks, you know, and unfortunately seeing the future is not one of my many talents. Not that it matters— you weren't very helpful."

"If the world doesn't end, I'll set you up with some Bitcoin," Cass promised. "Hold on to it until 2017 and you can make a pretty penny."

It was late afternoon when they called it quits for the day on hypnosis. They had both missed lunch, so they ate dinner early, cheap take-and-bake pizzas that Bobby had picked up while Cass and Pamela were occupied.

"Could one of you give me a ride into town tomorrow?" Cass asked as the four of them finished eating, looking between Pamela and Bobby and Sam. "I've got a date with a tattoo gun in the afternoon. I'd ask to just borrow a car, but I'd really hate to get pulled over driving without a license." She'd made the appointment while she was out with Pamela the day before, but they hadn't had the time to stop and get the tattoo the same day.

"I can take you," Sam said quickly, and a little more eagerly than Cass thought was warranted. Cass blinked at him, but decided she didn't want to think too deeply about whatever was going on in his head.

"Okay. Thanks."

"And I'll make some calls, get you set up with some convincing ID," Bobby promised.

"Thanks, Bobby."

* * *

Cass drummed her fingers against her bare leg and stared out the window.

"You okay?" Sam glanced at her, concerned. "You look nervous."

"I don't have any tattoos," Cass said simply. "And I'm not a fan of needles. I'd ask you if it hurts, but I have a feeling your pain tolerance is a lot higher than mine."

"It's not so bad," Sam reassured her. At Cass's unimpressed look, he added, "I think how much it hurts depends on where you get it."

"I'm thinking upper thigh," Cass said, brushing her fingers over the hem of her sundress, where she intended for the tattoo to go. Flatly, she explained, "It's usually pretty well hidden by clothing, so it'll require a bit more effort if someone tries to cut it off."

"Cut it _off_?" Sam looked startled.

"I have seen some shit, Sam Winchester," Cass said tiredly. "You really think a demon's above flaying off your skin to try to get into your head?"

"No, I guess not," Sam said uncomfortably. He was quiet for a minute, and Cass guessed he was picturing it, or perhaps wondering whose tattoo had been flayed off. She was surprised when he shot her an appealing look and said seriously, "You know I won't let that happen to you, right?"

"I should hope not, considering how disastrous it would be if a demon got access to my memories." The very thought sent a shudder of fear down her spine.

"I'm not worried about your memories!" Sam said, sounding slightly offended. When he continued, his words were low and earnest, and laced with a healthy dose of self-recrimination. "Look, I already ruined your life once by bringing you here. I'm not gonna let anything else happen to you."

Cass winced. "I appreciate the sentiment, Sam. Really, I do. But I don't think that's a promise you can realistically keep."

"Well, I'm making it anyway," Sam said stubbornly. When Cass continued to look at him warily, he insisted, "I mean it, Cass."

Cass sighed, and lied, "Okay, Sam. I believe you."

To Cass's immense relief, they soon arrived at the tattoo parlor. After sorting through payment and paperwork, the tattoo artist—whose own sleeves were utter works of art that Cass couldn't help admiring—asked, "Is your boyfriend going to sit with you?"

"Oh, I'm not—" Sam said awkwardly, gesturing. "We're not—uh..."

Cass was having a hard time believing that the awkward giant standing next to her routinely and convincingly lied to the police. She interrupted his stammering, since he had clearly fixated on the wrong half of the question. "I'd like it if you sat with me. Strictly platonic, of course."

Sam nodded, looking relieved. "Yeah. Right. Okay."

The tattoo artist walked the two of them back, directing Cass to lay back and hike up her dress so she could access her upper thigh. Sam sat awkwardly in the chair next to Cass and made an effort not to look at her exposed legs.

"Do you, uh," Sam hesitated, glancing at the artist as the tattoo gun started up. "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

"No, not really," Cass said, gritting her teeth and looking at the ceiling. "But I wouldn't mind some conversation to distract me from the needle piercing my skin."

"Right." Sam looked lost. "Uh…"

Cass sighed. "Why don't you tell me an embarrassing story about your brother?"

That, Sam could do. He had to carefully edit a few of the stories, but Cass was treated to a retelling of some of Dean's most embarrassing moments, including a few unfortunate bar hookups, some unsuccessful attempts at hustling pool, and the time his brother had broken a toe trying to kick open a door.

"How's it looking?" Cass asked, when Sam had finished a story and fell quiet for a moment. Sam glanced quickly at her thigh and smiled reassuringly.

"You're almost done."

Cass narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that the truth, or are you just saying that to make me feel better?"

"You're almost done," the artist confirmed.

"Great," Cass sighed, then looked back at Sam. "You wanna grab ice cream after this? I feel like I've earned ice cream."

Sam huffed a laugh and agreed, "You've earned ice cream."

Thirty minutes later, Cass was soaking up the afternoon sunshine and enjoying chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, the bandages over her tattoo just barely peeking out from under the hem of her dress. The whole process wasn't as bad as she'd feared, but she was still glad it was over.

"This is great," she said to Sam, stretching out her legs from the picnic table they'd picked out in front of the roadside soft-serve stand, relishing the feel of the sun on her skin. "This part of the summer's insufferable in DC. It's like a sauna."

"What would you be doing right now?" Sam asked, fiddling with his spoon. "If you were home."

Cass eyed him suspiciously. "Are you trying to make yourself feel guilty on purpose?"

Sam made a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh. "I'm trying to get to know you," he said earnestly, then added, "It's weird to know hardly anything about you when you know so much about me."

"Okay, fair."

"So?"

"It's, what, Wednesday?" Cass took a bite of ice cream and thought about it. "I'd be at work right around this time. I'd get off after five, go home, and probably take care of some chores before making dinner. Then I'd watch some mindless TV for a while, do a little yoga, and read before bed. In the mornings I run. Fridays I get drinks with friends, Saturdays are usually brunch and museums, sometimes dancing, and on Sundays I call my parents." She took another bite of ice cream and added dryly, "It's a very exciting life."

"What do you like to read?" Sam asked, then smiled wryly. "Besides the Lord of the Rings."

"Horror, mostly." Sam's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and Cass smiled. "What'd you expect? I'm a fan of a show about hunting monsters."

"Okay, sure," Sam said. "But right before bed?"

"Well, it's a lot less scary when all the monsters are fictional," Cass said, sobering. She forced some cheer into her voice to ask, "Do you ever read anything but monster research?"

"What, you don't already know?" Sam asked, amused.

"It wouldn't make for a very good episode if you just sat around for an hour and peacefully enjoyed _A Study in Scarlet_ ," Cass said sensibly.

"I do like a good mystery," Sam said. Cass grimaced. "What?"

"Please tell me you don't consider that a _good_ mystery."

"It's Sherlock Holmes," Sam said, disbelieving. "It's what most people think of when they think of mysteries, isn't it?"

"I guess." Cass shrugged. "I never liked the Sherlock Holmes stuff."

"Because of your last name?" Sam guessed.

"I _have_ been on the receiving end of 'No shit, Sherlock' an above-average number of times," Cass said, "but no. I never liked the mysteries where you don't get the chance to solve them yourself. Arthur Conan Doyle's stories almost never give you all the clues you need to solve the thing yourself—you're just stumbling along in the dark with Doctor Watson until he deigns to tell you how he solved it."

"More of an Agatha Christie fan, then?"

What followed was a surprisingly normal and pleasant exchange about their favorite mystery stories, after which they branched off into talking about other books. Eventually, though, Cass became distracted. Sam noticed, and began to slowly give more and more outlandish opinions, waiting to see if Cass would notice.

"And that's why the Twilight books have the most realistic depiction of vampires." Cass hummed, feigning interest. Sam huffed. "You're not listening at all anymore, are you?"

"What?" Cass had been staring somewhere past Sam's left shoulder, but now she looked at him without apology. "No. No, I'm not. Look at that sweet, precious angel."

Sam blinked and followed Cass's gesture. On the other side of the lot, a young kid was happily petting an older golden retriever, who was panting happily in the sunshine and loving the attention.

"I just want to steal her and cuddle her until I die," Cass said longingly.

"I hope you're talking about the dog," Sam said. Cass shot him a look that said 'obviously'. "You said you wanted a dog, right? But you didn't have the time?"

"Yeah," Cass sighed. "I started work early, and with public transit in the city, it was hard to predict when I'd get home. I wouldn't have felt right leaving a dog alone in a tiny apartment for that long. And dog walkers are _expensive_."

"You don't live in an apartment now," Sam observed, seemingly trying to be positive.

"I don't live anywhere now," Cass corrected him. Before Sam could open his mouth to reply she continued, "Bobby's guest room doesn't count. I was only ever supposed to be staying until we found a way for me to go home, remember? And now I'm only staying because we're working on the apocalypse thing, and because I have nowhere else to go."

"You wanna leave?" Sam looked troubled by that, for some reason, though Cass felt it shouldn't be much of a surprise.

"I don't know." Cass shook her head. "I'm not really thinking that far ahead right now. But Bobby didn't exactly sign up for a permanent tenant, and I can't intrude on his hospitality forever."

Sam frowned, but didn't argue the point any further. Cass found herself wishing she hadn't brought it up, because the carefree atmosphere brought on by sunshine and ice cream and talking about books was now gone. The ride back to Bobby's place that followed was tense, with Sam brooding and shooting Cass puzzled looks, and Cass doing her best to pretend that she was very interested in the scenery outside the window.

There was good news waiting for them when they got back, though.

"Yes!" Cass jumped up from where she had been hunched over Sam's computer, checking on the hacked email account of the adjunct professor at Anna Milton's college. "She took the bait. Friday afternoon."


	6. Luck

Anna Milton went to school in Illinois. It was a decent drive from Bobby's place in Sioux Falls, and they took three cars: Sam in the Impala, Bobby in his truck, and Pamela in her Volkswagen. Sam and Bobby could probably both have taken the Impala, but Pamela was planning to head home as soon as her own job was done, and if everything went well, then they would be returning with Dean, so this arrangement was the best to ensure that four full-grown adults—or more than full-grown, in the case of Sam—wouldn't be trapped in one car together for a day-long drive.

Cass, given the choice between the three drivers, chose to ride with Pamela. This was in part due to the fact that Pamela would be leaving soon, and Cass wanted to spend some time with her before she left. The psychic was clever and had an easy air about her, and, though she was on board to help them recover Anna's memories to try to avert the coming Apocalypse, Pamela didn't have a personal stake in this mission. It was nice to be around someone who wasn't pressing her for answers or watching her expectantly.

Riding with Bobby wouldn't have been too bad on that front, either, Cass thought, but Sam… well, Sam was still in the habit of looking at her with that tragic kicked-puppy face, and Cass didn't want to deal with that alone for an extended period of time. Or worse—he might try to draw her into another uncomfortably emotional conversation, and on the long drive she'd have no escape.

So instead Cass rode with Pamela, and the two of them talked, and sang along to the radio, and ate crappy, pre-packaged gas station snacks. Their little caravan of vehicles eventually stopped at a rest stop just outside the college town so Cass and Pamela could change into their 'costumes'. They had timed their arrival for the late morning, leaving a few hours for them to get settled and scope out the room Cass had reserved on campus before Anna was due to arrive.

Cass freshened up as best she could in the bathroom and changed into her 'professor' clothes. Inspired by an anthropology professor she'd had in college, Cass had selected a pair of wide-legged pants, a short-sleeved sweater, and strappy, flat sandals that suggested she was likely to kick off her shoes and pace the front of the classroom barefoot at any moment. For the cherry on top, she piled her hair into a slightly sloppy knot at the back of her head and tucked a pencil in it. Cass stepped out of the bathroom while Pamela was still putting the finishing touches on her make-up, finding Sam and Bobby waiting.

"You look—good," Sam said by way of greeting, then backtracked, blanching. "I mean, professional. Professorial."

"...Thanks," Cass said uncertainly, raising an eyebrow at his overcorrection. "I think."

"You sure you're ready for this?" Bobby asked her seriously.

"It'll be fine," Cass assured him. "Pamela's doing all the hard work. I'm just spinning a yarn."

"To an _angel_ ," Bobby emphasized.

"Well, yeah, but she's not dangerous." Cass paused, then added, "Well, yet."

Neither Bobby nor Sam looked particularly reassured by that, but at that moment Pamela emerged from the bathroom, wearing a dress and a shawl that somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between 'academia' and 'hypnotist'.

"Alright," she said, smiling despite the nervous tension in the lines of her eyes. "Show time."

Anna Milton arrived to the appointment five minutes early. She looked young, and nervous, but she smiled politely and shook Cass's hand with a firm, confident grip. If Cass hadn't known better, she would never have thought she was anything more than a nice, if slightly sheltered, college student.

"Hi, Ms. Milton. I'm glad you could make it," Cass said, beckoning Anna into the study room she'd reserved using her stolen credentials. "I'm Dr. Dinkley, and this is Ms. Penelope Wilson. She'll be the one guiding you through the hypnosis; I'm just here to supervise and observe."

"Hi," Anna said, then glanced around uncertainly. "I was a little surprised we're not in one of the labs?"

Cass would have liked to get one, but she hadn't wanted to risk running into someone who might recognize her as an imposter in the more supervised building. Study rooms during the summer semester had fewer visitors, and fewer cameras. Cass smiled and lied.

"Labs have their uses, but they aren't very relaxing, which means they're not ideal for hypnosis," Cass said, inventing justifications on the fly. "We did test some students in labs in spring, but we're trying to use study rooms in summer and fall, to see if the clinical environment has a negative effect on our results."

"Oh, sure," Anna said, relaxing. "I guess that makes sense."

"Did you fill out the survey I sent you?" Cass asked. She didn't really need it, but taking extra steps to make the 'experiment' seem more convincing had helped her to reduce her anxiety about this whole thing.

"Oh, yes." Anna rummaged in her purse and pulled out a piece of paper, which she handed over to Cass. "Here."

"Thank you." Cass scanned the paper, not really taking in any of the words written on it. It was all basic background information about Anna's background and demographics, the sort of thing she might have been interested to know if she was running a real experiment. As it was, the only purpose it served in this room was to give Cass something to grip tightly so that her hands didn't shake with nerves.

"Alright, excellent. Please, take a seat." She gestured to the couch in the study room. Anna walked over to it and sat stiffly. "Now, I explained this in my emails, but I'll just go over it with you one more time before we begin. Feel free to stop me if you have any questions."

"Alright."

"How this will work, is that we'll have you lie down on that couch you're sitting on. I will dim the lights, and then I'll start recording. Then Ms. Wilson will ask you to close your eyes, and will guide you into a hypnotic state. We will ask you questions while you're under, and then we'll be comparing the answers you give us under hypnosis to the questionnaire you just gave me. It shouldn't take more than an hour. When the session is completed, Ms. Wilson will wake you up, I will ask you a few follow-up questions, and then you will be free to go with your payment. Do you have any questions?"

"No, I don't think so," Anna said, still looking rather nervous.

"Alright then." Cass tried to smile reassuringly. She hoped she did not look as nauseous as she felt. "Would you like some water before we begin?"

"No, I'm okay. Thank you."

"I will dim the lights now, then." Cass crossed the room to flip off half the lights in the room. "Go ahead and lay down. You can take your shoes off, if that makes you more comfortable."

Anna shucked her shoes and lay down on the couch, folding her arms over her chest and interlacing her fingers, as if in prayer.

Cass crossed back to take a seat across the table from Anna and Pamela. She brought up a program on her computer—a gift from Bobby before they left, along with some very convincing fake IDs—and began the 'recording', which was in actuality a call to Bobby's phone. This had been the only way to convince Bobby and Sam not to stake out the study room next door, although Cass had no doubt that they would be in the building in less than a minute if anything went wrong.

The call connected, and Cass began.

* * *

"It's been a while since she went in," Sam said to Bobby, eyes scanning the student building they'd watched Anna Milton enter minutes before. She hadn't _looked_ like an angel. She just looked… young. Younger than Sam had expected. He glanced at his watch again. "The call should've come through by now."

"Give it a few minutes," Bobby said, sounding unconcerned. He flipped a page in his newspaper, which he had picked up in the first place to look less suspicious, but now appeared to be actually reading. "Pamela's tougher than she looks, and Cass is FBI. They can go ten minutes without you busting down the door."

"She's a desk jockey for the FBI," Sam reminded him. "She can't shoot a gun, remember? Not that it would matter, since they're both _unarmed_."

"Wouldn't stop her kickin' your ass if you bust in there and ruin the whole charade just 'cause you got antsy," Bobby said sternly. "Sit down, would you?"

Sam opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Bobby's phone began to ring. Sam sat down on the bench next to Bobby, who swiftly answered the phone and then muted the speaker so noises on their end of the line wouldn't come through Cass's computer.

Cass's voice came through the phone, cool and professional, "This is Dr. Miranda Dinkley, beginning the supervised hypnosis of Anna Milton by Penelope Wilson. Ms. Milton, do you consent to undergo hypnosis?"

* * *

"I do." Anna's eyes were closed. She seemed to be making an effort to relax.

"Thank you," Cass said. "Ms. Wilson, you can begin." Pamela leaned forward and began the process of guiding Anna into a hypnotic trance. Cass twisted her hands in her lap and tried to remember to breathe.

"What's your name?" Pamela asked, once Anna was deep in the trance.

"Anna Milton."

"What about your father? What's his name?"

"Rich Milton."

"All right, Anna. I want you to look further back... When you were very young..."

Anna groaned lowly, forehead wrinkling like she was in pain. "I don't want to."

"It'll be okay. Anna, just one look—that's all we need."

"No!..." Anna's distress was growing. Cass's nerves were growing accordingly more and more frazzled. They were getting close, and once Pamela managed to poke through Anna's self-imposed amnesia, there was no telling just what might happen.

"What's your dad's name?" Pamela pressed, her voice still remarkably calm. "Your real dad. _Remember_. Remember where you came from."

"No. No!..." Anna tossed her head from side to side. "He's gonna kill me. He'll be so angry…"

Pamela shot Cass a dark look. Cass had told her to expect something like this on the drive over here, but she had no idea what other turmoil Pamela was feeling from Anna that Cass couldn't feel.

"Calm down," Pamela said to Anna, keeping her voice steady. "Anna, you're safe."

"No!"

Anna threw her head back, and lights overhead in the study room suddenly burst in a shattering of glass. Cass and Pamela both flinched, but Pamela kept her head and said, "Wake in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5."

Anna's eyes shot open, and she pushed herself upright. And then, in the next moment, she had vaulted over the back of the couch, putting the furniture between them. Her eyes darted toward the door and Cass stood quickly, putting out her arms in a show of peace.

"Wait! Please, Anna. We're not here to hurt you."

"Who are you?" Anna demanded coldly, looking with suspicion between Cass and Pamela. "You're no _professors_."

"We're just humans," Cass said gently, eyes wide to convey her sincerity. Her heart was racing. "We don't want to hurt you, Anna. My name is Cass. This is Pamela."

Anna's face was still dark, and more than a little fearful. "How did you even _know_ about me?"

"Because I've seen the future," Cass said simply. Anna blinked, furrowing her brow. Cass pressed on, "Anna, the first of the 66 seals is about to break."

Anna went very still. Then, abruptly, she straightened into a posture that screamed 'military' and commanded, "Go on."

Cass explained as quickly and clearly as she could: that Dean Winchester had been sent to Hell, that he was the righteous man that was going to break the first seal, that both Heaven and Hell were waiting on him to break it so that the Apocalypse could begin in earnest, and that all of that could be avoided if only they could save Dean from Hell before he broke the seal.

"I see," Anna said quietly once Cass had fallen quiet. Her face was blank, her eyes distant with thought. Cass couldn't begin to guess what was going through her mind. "So you want me to save Dean Winchester from Hell."

"I know we've interrupted your life," Cass said apologetically, genuinely sorry about having to do it. "But if we hadn't, it would have been interrupted anyway. The breaking of the first seal would have… activated you. You would have been hunted, by angels and demons. Your parents would have been killed." Anna's eyes sharpened on Cass's face at the mention of her parents, a dangerous, wary look. Cass swallowed hard. "I don't know if we can prevent all of that, if you help us," she admitted. "But it has to be better than doing nothing. Please. Will you help us?"

Anna stared at Cass through narrowed eyes for a long moment. Cass sat very still, and then jumped a little when Anna pushed herself off the couch and began to pace, running a hand through her dark red hair in frustration.

"You don't understand what you're asking me to do," Anna said, shooting Cass an accusatory look. "An assault on Hell is dangerous enough for a _garrison_ of angels. To try it alone is basically suicide." Anna halted and shook her head. "And there's no way I could do it without my grace. I ripped it out as I fell—I don't know where it would have landed."

"I do," Cass said immediately. Then, more reluctantly, she said, "If it really comes to that, I know some angels who might help you, if you asked. From your old garrison."

Anna snorted without humor. "Or they might try to kill me."

Cass winced. "I'm sorry, Anna. I know it's a lot to ask, but I can't think of anyone else who might have the power and the will to stop this before it starts."

Anna folded her arms across her chest and stared into Cass's pleading face. After a moment Anna sagged, her shoulders slumping.

"It really is coming, then." Her voice was hollow, but certain. Still, Cass nodded. Anna squeezed her eyes shut and sighed heavily. "Okay. I'll help you."

As the three of them left the building, Cass found herself deeply thankful that there weren't many people in the building during the summer. With any luck, it would be a while before anyone noticed the destroyed lights in the study room they'd used. Maybe they'd think it was a freak electrical accident?

Bobby and Sam were waiting outside the building for them. Bobby stood up from the bench he'd been sitting on. Sam was already standing, and looked like he'd been pacing a moment before.

"Anna, this is Bobby Singer and Sam Winchester," Cass introduced. "Bobby, Sam, this is Anna."

Anna nodded gravely at them. Sam cleared his throat awkwardly.

"So, you said we needed to find Anna's grace, right? Where are we headed next?"

"Union, Kentucky," Cass said. To Anna she added, "Your grace landed there like a shooting star when you fell, and a giant tree sprang up there, fully grown, over the course of a few months."

"Well, then," Pamela said briskly. "This is where I say goodbye." She didn't sound too torn up about it. Cass couldn't blame her.

"You're leaving?" Anna asked, furrowing her brow.

"I've done my part," Pamela told her, not unkindly. "Now I get to go home, drink, and try to forget all this ever happened."

"Thank you, Pamela," Cass said sincerely.

"You have my number, girlie," Pamela said sternly. "Don't forget to use it, alright?"

"I won't," Cass promised.

It was almost a six hour drive to Union, Kentucky. Anna and Cass both rode with Bobby, leaving Sam to drive the Impala alone. Cass did feel a bit bad about leaving Sam to himself, but it wouldn't feel right to leave Bobby and Anna alone in a car together for the hours-long drive, either. So Cass climbed into the passenger seat of Bobby's pickup, Anna climbed into the back, and then they were off.

* * *

The tree was magnificent. It must have been close to 100 feet tall, with broad branches stretching out to touch the night sky. The sun had set maybe an hour ago, and now the oak that sprang from Anna's grace looked crowned with stars.

"This it?" Bobby asked, putting the truck in park and glancing skeptically at Cass.

"Yes," Anna said from the back seat, leaning forward. Her face was hard for Cass to look at, a mix of deep longing and even deeper sadness. "It is."

They got out of the car. Sam, who had parked the Impala next to Bobby's truck, did the same. Anna led the way to the tree, taking slow, deliberate steps. Watching her, Cass felt for a moment like she was in a church, watching Anna walk down the aisle. But she'd never do that, now. She was about to give up her humanity. Cass tried to remind herself that Anna would never have had that anyway, that her giving up her human life was inevitable, considering what was coming.

But it didn't make her feel any better.

Anna stopped at the base of the tree and lifted one shaking hand toward the trunk. Before her fingers could touch the bark, she hesitated, and turned to speak over her shoulder.

"Close your eyes."

Cass did so immediately, and then, for good measure, covered them and turned her back to Anna. And then, because she couldn't see if Bobby and Sam had followed her example, she said quickly, "If you don't want your eyes burned out of your skull you'll do what she says."

And then, there was light. The brightness of it was like looking into the sun, even facing away from it, even with her eyes shut and her hands over her face. The light faded after a minute, and Cass blinked hard as her vision slowly returned to normal. Anna was making her way back towards them, her steps stiff. Her eyes were watching the sky warily. They seemed greener than before.

"That's it?" Sam asked her.

"Yes. I'm an angel again." Anna looked at the sky for a moment longer, then turned to Cass, her expression grave. "Heaven will notice me. Even if they didn't see the flare of my grace, they'll definitely notice when I pull Dean from the pit."

"What does that mean?" asked Sam.

"It means I have some things I need to take care of before I save your brother." Anna didn't look at Sam as she answered him, still looking directly at Cass. "Look for Dean's resurrection at high noon tomorrow."

Anna looked up at the stars again, then stepped forward into Cass's personal space. Cass swallowed hard and managed not to back away.

"I'll have to run after that," Anna said, not blinking once. Her eyes burned as brightly as the stars above, and she spoke fervently, almost angrily. "If I even survive. _Don't_ let the world end."

"Yes, ma'am."

Anna gave her one last, long look, nodded, and then vanished with a small _whoosh_ of displaced air.

"What the—" Sam said. "She just—disappeared?"

"Flew away," Cass corrected absently, still feeling slightly off-balance. "Yeah, angels do that. It's basically teleportation."

"What did she mean, she has 'things to take care of'?" Sam asked.

Cass shrugged. "I assume she's tying up loose ends from her human life… Saying goodbye."

Bobby cleared his throat, and Cass and Sam looked at him. "Well, it's a five hour drive from here to Pontiac. If we get goin' now, we might be able to catch a few hours of sleep."

"Yeah," Cass sighed. "Let's go."

Bobby and Sam turned back to their respective cars. Cass hesitated a moment, then followed Bobby back to his truck.

"You mind if I stick with you?"

"Hop in," Bobby said easily. "I don't mind company."

"Thanks," Cass said, closing the door after her and glancing at Sam's troubled expression behind the wheel of the Impala. He glanced back, and Cass looked quickly away. "I get the feeling riding with Sam would get me five straight hours of brooding."

"You ain't wrong," Bobby said, "But I can't say I blame him, either."

"No, me neither," Cass agreed. "Still. I'll take grouchy Bobby Singer over broody Sam Winchester any day."

"Watch it, kid, or you'll be hitchhikin' to Pontiac," Bobby warned, though without heat. Cass put up her hands in surrender and fell quiet.

She made an effort to stay awake on the drive, but she was fighting a losing battle. Cass fell asleep on long car rides even in the best of times, but it had been a long day, the stars were out, and the rumble of Bobby's truck's engine was lulling her to sleep. After she jerked herself awake for the third time, Bobby said, "Go ahead and rest. You've done your part today already."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," Bobby assured her. "Your yawnin's contagious. I'd rather hear you snoring."

"I don't snore…" Cass defended, but her eyes were already drooping closed. She rested her head against the passenger window and surrendered to sleep.

* * *

They arrived in Pontiac in the early hours of the morning. Bobby beat Sam to the motel by a few minutes, and by the time Sam arrived he'd already rented a ground-level room with two beds and procured an extra roll-away bed to set up in the room. There was no sense wasting money on two rooms now that there were only three of them, and apart from that, Bobby wouldn't have felt right leaving Cass alone.

"Cass is passed out in the passenger seat," Bobby told Sam as he got out of the Impala, tossing him a room key with the hand that wasn't guiding the roll-away bed. "Go wake her up while I bring this to the room, would you?"

Sam nodded, shouldering his duffel and heading over to Bobby's truck. Cass was indeed out cold in the passenger seat, head tilted at an awkward angle, curls falling in her face. Sam tapped lightly on the glass, but Cass didn't stir.

Sam hesitated. It had been a long day. If she was out cold, maybe it was best to let her sleep. Not in the car, obviously, but she was sleeping pretty deeply… Sam opened the passenger door as quietly as possible and gently unlatched Cass's seatbelt.

Sam had done this sort of thing a few times before, with Jess. After a long study session, or a night of drinking, Sam could scoop her up from the passenger seat, and Jess would stay asleep, or wake up just enough to cast a sleepy smile up at him before closing her eyes again.

This time, Sam got a punch in the face.

"Ah!" Sam fell on his ass in the parking lot, more from surprise than pain. He gently prodded his nose, hoping it wasn't broken.

" _Sam?"_ Cass was wide awake now, of course. "What the hell?!"

"You punched me!" Sam was more surprised than angry, really. To his relief, his nose seemed fine.

"I woke up in the dark to someone manhandling me, what did you expect me to do?!" Cass hopped out of the truck and knelt in front of him, peering critically at Sam's face. "You're lucky I didn't break your nose!"

"I didn't expect you to wake you up," Sam said tiredly. "I was just gonna carry you to the room." Which, in hindsight, had been a stupid idea. What had he been thinking? This wasn't Jess.

"Yeah, that's not a good idea with me," Cass said bluntly.

"I can see that," Sam said with a wince. Cass's defensiveness softened a little bit.

"Are you okay? Do I need to get you some ice, or something?"

"No, it's fine," Sam assured her. "Really. Sorry."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay…" Cass still sounded uncertain.

"Come on." Sam heaved himself off the ground and picked his duffel back up off the ground. "We're in Room 16."

Sam dropped his things in the room and then left again while Cass was in the bathroom, headed for the vending machines at the end of the hall. He'd declined Cass's offer to get ice before, but at this point, Sam was actually a little concerned that his face would bruise if he didn't ice it. He'd been thinking about what he and Dean would say to each other when Dean finally got out for months, and Sam wasn't about to let his brother's first words to him be, "Dude, who gave you the shiner?" The ice machine was broken, so Sam put a few coins into the soda machine and pressed a cold can of Coke to his face with a sigh. He sat on the hood of the Impala and stared at the door of the hotel room morosely.

A few minutes later, Bobby emerged from the room. He spotted Sam quickly and walked over.

"Shoulda talked her into taking one of the real beds. I don't figure either of us is gonna get much sleep tonight." Then Bobby squinted, taking in the fact that Sam was not _drinking_ a soda, but instead holding the cold can to the side of his nose. "What the hell happened?"

"I, uh." Sam coughed, ears burning. "I might have startled Cass awake."

Bobby huffed with amusement, sitting next to him on the hood. "You can't do anything right with that girl, can you?"

Sam grimaced, and then hissed softly as the expression pulled at his tender face. "Doesn't seem like it, no."

"Well," Bobby shrugged. "At least you're tryin'."

They fell quiet for a while. Sam switched the can of soda to cool the other side of his face, then sighed.

"I know it's stupid, but it just…" He gestured vaguely. "I don't know. It feels too easy, you know? I mean, we spent a whole year trying to stop Dean from going to Hell. I spent weeks trying to get him back. And now… now everything's happening so fast. I mean, angels? The apocalypse? This is a whole other level of weird, even for us."

"I know what you mean." Bobby scrubbed at his beard tiredly and looked up at the sky. The light pollution from the parking lot's lamps meant that there were no stars visible above, only gray-black darkness. "I'd like to think we just got a lucky break, but, well…"

Bobby shrugged. "You Winchesters have luck alright, but it usually ain't the good kind."


	7. Gandalf the White

Sam shifted nervously and checked his watch again. He'd been checking it every ten seconds since half past eleven, then glancing around anxiously at the surrounding trees before peering back at his watch to see that less than a minute had passed.

Anna had said to expect Dean's resurrection at noon, and they'd already done everything they could to prepare. The three of them had eaten breakfast—or, more accurately, Cass had eaten breakfast while Sam and Bobby anxiously pushed food around on their plates. Then, they'd stopped at a gas station to pick up a couple of bottles of water, because Cass remembered Dean waking up thirsty. In retrospect, he might have only worked up such a thirst because he'd had to dig his way out of his own grave. He wouldn't have to do that this time, though. Sam and Bobby had already dug up most of the dirt from the grave, stopping only when their shovels tapped the top of Dean's coffin. They had left the grave like that, an open pit, and then retreated to a safe distance, where they waited.

Cass couldn't help feeling anxious as noon crept closer. Bobby and Sam were fidgety for good reason—they were waiting for their family. Her nerves were more selfish.

What if it didn't work? What if Anna failed? What if she couldn't save Dean, and the first seal still broke? Or worse, what if she was captured? What if she revealed everything Cass knew? Cass didn't think Anna would knowingly betray their efforts to stop the apocalypse, but...

The impact hit like lightning and thunder simultaneously. White light flashed and the earth shook, sending Cass stumbling backwards into the Impala.

"Holy!—" Bobby grunted, catching himself on the hood.

"Dean!"

Sam was charging across the field, not even waiting for the vegetation to stop smoking. Bobby set off after him at only a slightly more sedate pace. Cass reached into the back seat to retrieve a bottle of water before carefully picking her own way across the field. Sam was kneeling at the edge of the grave, leaning down.

Cass heard Dean before she saw him.

"Sammy?"

"Dean!" Sam leaned further down and then heaved upwards, and then Dean Winchester was being hauled out of his own grave. He looked pretty good, for a man who'd been dead for nearly two months. He looked whole and healthy and generally just fine, apart from the dark earth clinging to his clothes.

"Sam." Dean pulled his brother into a tight hug, then abruptly pushed him backwards, joy and relief swiftly giving way to anger. "What the hell did you do?"

Sam allowed himself to be pushed backwards, although he clearly didn't understand why. Confused, he said, "We got you out."

"Yeah, and what'd it cost, huh?" Dean demanded. He looked over Sam's shoulder, seeing Bobby and Cass hovering a few feet away. Dean's expression grew even darker as he looked at Cass in particular, and she barely restrained a flinch. "That better not be Ruby."

"I'm human." Hesitantly, Cass stepped forward just enough to offer him the bottle of water, extending her arm fully so she didn't have to get too close. Dean's throat worked, swallowing automatically at the sight of it, but still he eyed both her and the bottle suspiciously. "And the water's normal. Look, the seal's still on it."

Dean glanced toward his brother and Bobby one more time, then finally took the bottle and cracked the seal. To Sam he said sternly, "Start talking." Then he began to gulp down the water.

"An angel saved you," Sam began. Dean choked, then began to cough. He glared at Sam accusingly.

"No, listen, I'm serious," Sam said quickly. "Look, Cass here is kind of a… a seer, and she saw that an angel would pull you out from Hell. So, we found an angel, and convinced her to help."

Cass raised a skeptical eyebrow at Sam's phrasing. Bobby, catching her eye, shook his head minutely. He and Sam must have put their heads together at some point to decide how and when to break everything to Dean. Cass shrugged and kept her mouth shut.

"That," said Dean, catching his breath, "is the stupidest story I've ever heard."

"It's the truth!"

Dean shook his head. "You seriously expect me to believe in _angels_?"

"Dude, you made a deal with a demon and went to _Hell_ ," Sam said. "How are angels any more far fetched?"

"There's been lore on angels for thousands of years, from all sorts of cultures," Bobby cut in, then added, "Though I'd still have had a hard time believin' it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

Dean still eyed both of them skeptically before rounding on Cass with a narrow-eyed stare. "And you—you're, what, some kinda psychic?"

"It's… complicated," said Cass. She glanced at the clear blue sky nervously, wondering how soon it would take heaven to notice what had happened. "We should probably finish this conversation somewhere else. Preferably heavily warded."

"We'll head back to the motel," Bobby said. "Give Dean a chance to wash the grave dirt off 'im before we hit the road."

"And a burger?" Dean asked, distracted from his righteous disbelief by the thought of food. "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

"Yeah," said Sam. He was smiling, his eyes shining. "Whatever you want, Dean."

"Two burgers, then."

* * *

If Sam hadn't felt just how hard Dean had hugged him when he'd pulled his brother from the grave, he might have been a little offended by the relief and emotion on Dean's face when he saw the Impala again. Sam loved the car, too—it had been more of a home to him than any one place in the world, except for maybe Bobby's house—but Dean _seriously_ loved it.

"Hey, sweetheart. Did you miss me?"

Case in point. Any other day Sam would have rolled his eyes, but today he couldn't help but smile. He tossed his brother the keys, and Dean caught them with an eager grin. They climbed into the car, Dean in the driver's seat, Sam by his side. The way it should be.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked, voice flat. Sam blinked, smile falling.

"Uh… it's an iPod jack."

"You were supposed to take care of her, not douche her up," Dean complained, yanking off the iPod mount and tossing it carelessly into the backseat.

Sam opened his mouth to defend himself, but he couldn't think of anything to say. His mind was flashing back to that night when he'd first summoned Cass, when she was the one sitting in the passenger seat while Sam drove. She'd started up some music on the iPod to stop him from peppering her with questions, but before she had, she'd said…

"She _said_ you'd hate it," Sam said, voice soft with surprise.

It wasn't that he was impressed, necessarily. If he'd thought about it, Sam could have predicted that he would, given how attached he was to his cassette tapes. But the fact that Cass had said it so casually, long before she'd ever seen Dean in person, was… odd. She'd been right about big things so far, but it was weird just how much she knew, even about little things like this. Or rather, _especially_ about little things like this.

"She?" Dean's brow furrowed, and he glanced between Sam and the dashboard, as if trying to figure out when Sam had started referring to the Impala as 'she', before it clicked. "You mean Cass?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "She said you'd hate the iPod."

Dean evidently decided he didn't want to deal with the implications of that. Instead he asked, "Then why the hell did you leave it in my car?"

"Because I wanted to listen to my own music, Dean, and people aren't putting out _cassette tapes_ anymore."

And then the brothers were right back to arguing, as if no time had passed between them at all.

* * *

Bobby and Sam were watching in amusement as Dean worked on his third cheeseburger. Pontiac was a small town, so their food options had been limited. They'd ended up stopping at McDonald's, and Cass had already finished her vegetarian 'meal' of fries and a chocolate shake. No one was talking, but even so, Cass felt like an intruder on a private family reunion. She stood and made her way to the door, figuring she'd give them some time alone… and take some time for herself, while she was at it.

"Cass?" Sam apparently was not as absorbed in watching his brother messily eat a burger as she had thought. Bobby raised an eyebrow at her, too.

"You goin' somewhere?"

Cass shrugged. "I wanna stretch my legs if we're gonna be in the car for hours. I won't go far."

Bobby nodded, and Cass stepped out into the air of early evening. It was still hot and humid outside, and she immediately missed the air-conditioning, but she walked on, not wanting to watch the happy reunion any longer. It wasn't that she wasn't happy for them. She was.

But it hurt to watch, knowing that she wouldn't see her own family again. She wondered how her sister was doing. They weren't as close as they used to be, but they still found time to talk every week. Cass couldn't imagine how Alex would feel when she found out that Cass had disappeared. Her parents would be distraught, too.

It would be different if she had died, but she hadn't. She'd just vanished from her apartment in the middle of the night, and her family would never know for sure what happened. Did they think she'd been murdered? Kidnapped? Did they think she'd taken her own life? How long would they look for her before they were forced to give up and declare her dead? Would they bury an empty casket? There were so many questions, and Cass would never know the answers to them. She tried not to think about it, looking around for a distraction.

The check-in clerk was taking a smoke break in the parking lot, leaning on an old, beat-up sedan. Feeling slightly self-destructive, Cass approached and asked to bum one. The clerk eyed her cautiously, but ultimately tapped out a cigarette for her and let her borrow his lighter. Cass thanked him and made her way to the opposite side of the parking lot to watch the cars passing on the road.

It was not a good cigarette. It was cheap and, to Cass's distaste, menthol flavored. But it had been months since she'd last had a cigarette, and the finger-tingling nicotine gave her something other than grief and loneliness to focus on. She inhaled, and exhaled, and counted passing cars. She'd counted seven cars and smoked a little over half the cigarette when she was interrupted.

"Got a light?"

"Sorry," Cass apologized automatically, and turned to direct the hopeful smoker towards the check-in clerk, or the office, if they'd already gone in. But then her eyes landed on the face of the woman who asked, and she froze.

Dark hair. Dark eyes. Stunning cheekbones. Black leather jacket.

Ruby.

Cass dropped her cigarette and took off across the parking lot at a sprint. She only made it a few yards before a blow struck her from behind, knocking her hard to the ground. She caught herself on her hands before she could knock her skull against the pavement and hissed at the sting in her bloody palms. Then a boot dug into her ribs, shoving Cass onto her back on the pavement. Ruby stood above her, looking unamused.

"Looks like you have me at a disadvantage," Ruby said lightly. "Clearly you know me, but I don't know you."

When running fails, the next best thing was to scream for help. Cass drew in a panicked breath and shouted, " _SA—"_

Ruby kicked her ribs again, harder this time. The air whooshed out of Cass's lungs, and she coughed and groaned, trying to curl up in a more protective posture. Ruby put her boot on Cass's throat, not standing, but applying just enough pressure to make it clear just how easy it would be for the demon to crush her windpipe. Cass went still.

"Ah, ah, ah," Ruby said, scolding. "Let's keep this conversation just between us girls. Now. Who the hell are you, and how the _hell_ did you get Dean Winchester out of the pit?"

Cass drew in a breath, and Ruby put the tiniest bit more pressure on her throat, adding sweetly, "Remember. No screaming."

Cass swallowed and glanced around. The check-in clerk had left already, not that he would have been any help. Cass didn't have any weapons on her, and even if she did, they'd be basically useless against a demon. She didn't even have a crappy take-away packet of salt. There _was_ a bit of broken concrete from an old traffic barrier nearby, just barely within reach. She supposed she could chuck it at Ruby's head and hope it distracted her long enough that she could run across the rest of the parking lot, or even just long enough that she could scream for help. Or…

Cass looked back at Ruby, forcing herself to look resigned. She opened her mouth and seized the bit of concrete at the same time.

"I don't answer to demons."

Cass threw the bit of concrete as hard as she could from her awkward position on the ground. It sailed past Ruby's head, and the demon actually looked amused.

"Nice aim."

Then the concrete landed where Cass had been hoping it would. Glass shattered, and the loud screeching of a car alarm filled the parking lot.

"Thanks."

Ruby's face darkened. She lifted her boot, and Cass braced herself for the stomp—but then the door to the Winchesters' hotel room clattered open, all three hunters barreling outside, and Ruby vanished.

* * *

Dean swallowed his food and frowned at the door Cass had just closed behind her. He looked to Bobby and Sam and asked, "She okay?"

"'Course not," Bobby said, in that tone he used whenever he thought they'd asked him a question with an obvious answer. Sam looked surprised by this, and Bobby raised an eyebrow at him. "What? You think she wants to watch our happy reunion when she's never gonna see her family again?"

Sam's face fell. "Right." He glanced at the closed door with that guilty, kicked-puppy expression of his. Dean frowned again.

"What happened to her family?"

"Nothing happened to _them_ ," Bobby said, shaking his head. "Your brother happened to _her."_ Dean looked to Sam, who winced, but didn't disagree. Bobby went on, his voice dry. "'Seer' is a bit of a stretch. What she actually is, is a normal person Sam accidentally yanked across dimensions with a botched summoning ritual. Except in her world, all of this is some TV show."

"Wait, wait." Dean set down the last morsel of his burger. "So on top of _angels_ , you're asking me to believe in an alternate dimension where our lives are a _TV show_? Come on, Bobby!" To Dean's dismay, neither Bobby nor Sam smiled and laughed at him for falling for their stupid joke.

"Well. she's been right about everything so far," said Bobby. "And I do mean _everything_. On top of that, the best damn psychic I know confirmed it: she's not of this world."

"No friggin' way." Dean shook his head, but Sam and Bobby just kept looking at him seriously. They weren't kidding. Dean sighed, and decided to roll with it. "And there's no way for her to get home? Can't the angel who pulled my ass out of hell just, I don't know, fly her back to her own dimension?"

"I don't think so," Bobby said. "There's someone out there who might know a spell that'd do the trick, but according to her, it's too dangerous to look for 'em. And I'm inclined to take her word for it."

"Damn."

Dean still thought it was weird, but he kinda had sympathy for the chick. If what Sam and Bobby were saying was true, then she wasn't much different from the other innocent people they met who got mixed up in supernatural stuff. Usually, most of those people either ended up dead, or they survived and went back to their normal lives knowing a little bit more than they wanted to about the world. Cass, apparently, fell somewhere in the middle: knowing way too much, but with no way to go back to her normal life. No way to go back to her family.

"I'm gonna go talk to her," Sam said determinedly, pushing his chair back from the small desk they'd used as a makeshift dining table. Bobby put a hand on his arm before he could stand.

"You tryin' to get punched in the face again?" Bobby asked. Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Give her some s—"

Bobby broke off, head turning as a loud shattering of glass sounded, followed by the blare of a car alarm. The three didn't even bother to exchange glances; they were all armed and out the door within seconds. They barely had time to register the sight of a dark-haired woman in a leather jacket standing with a boot on Cass's neck before the woman caught sight of them and then promptly vanished into thin air.

"Cass!" Sam ran across the parking lot at full speed, coming to kneel by Cass even as she pushed herself up into a sitting position with a grimace. "Are you okay?"

"M'fine." Cass wasn't looking at him; she had turned over her hands to grimace at the dirty, bloody mess on the palms of her hands. The scrapes would need to be cleaned. With her left hand, Cass then cautiously probed the ribs that Ruby had kicked. They were painful, but Cass didn't think it was anything more serious than bruising.

"What the hell just happened?" Dean demanded as he and Bobby caught up. He was still looking around suspiciously, on guard. "Who the hell was that?"

"Ruby," said Cass, finally looking at them now that she'd assessed the extent of her injuries.

"That was Ruby?" Sam asked, eyes wide. "Ruby _attacked_ you?"

"I _did_ kind of ruin her plans," Cass said, mouth twisting in distaste. It was just the first of what were sure to be dozens and dozens of divergences from what she considered canon. Now that Dean was out, she'd have to try and think about what people _would_ do, instead of what she'd _seen_ them do. If she'd done that, she might have known that Ruby would be pissed and trying to figure out who'd just saved Dean from Hell before the first seal could be broken. She would have to be more careful from now on.

"I think she was planning to subtly pry for information, but I recognized her immediately and tried to run," Cass explained, then added, "Speaking of running, we should probably leave before whoever's window I smashed comes around."

"Right."

Five minutes later, they were all back on the road, headed towards Bobby's place. Sam had helped Cass up off the ground, and he would have liked to clean up her hands, but they couldn't afford to wait around and possibly get busted for smashing a car window. Instead, Sam and Dean had grabbed all their belongings from the motel room and ditched the key while Bobby helped Cass into his truck and set a first aid kit in her lap so she could clean her hands.

Now Dean was following behind Bobby's truck, drumming his fingers on the wheel of the Impala agitatedly. After a few minutes of silence, he shot his brother a challenging look and demanded, "What's Ruby doing slinking around here?"

Sam looked, as far as Dean could tell, genuinely surprised. "How should I know? Like Cass said, she's probably looking for information. It's not every day a soul gets pulled out of Hell, let alone—" Sam cut himself off.

"Let alone what?"

"I shouldn't say yet," Sam said, regretfully. "Not until we're back at Bobby's."

"Uh-huh." Dean didn't sound convinced. "So you're _not_ working with Ruby, then? Is that what you're saying?"

"What?" Again, genuine surprise. "No! Dean, I've barely seen her. And the few times I have, I've told her to get lost. She couldn't save you, and she lied about it. Why the hell would I be working with her?"

"See, that's what I was saying before, only you never listened," Dean said. "Looks like all I need to do to get you to pay attention to what I say is get dragged to Hell." Sam didn't say anything to that. He sat quietly for a while, looking uncomfortable, and glanced out the window. Dean noticed. "Spit it out, Sammy."

Sam cleared his throat. "I mean, I never actually _did_ this, but… apparently, the way Cass originally saw it, I did work with Ruby… and I didn't find out she was lying until it was too late."

"Oh, come on, Sam!"

"You don't think I feel bad enough about it as it is?" Sam asked, voice rising. "Dean, I got _lucky_ when I screwed up that summoning ritual. I was desperate, okay? I would've done _anything_ to get you back, including working with Ruby! But I'm not anymore, okay? And I won't make that mistake again. I swear. If Ruby shows up again, I'll kill her."

"Good," Dean said firmly. Then, smirking, he said, "Now, what was Bobby sayin' before, about Cass punching you in the face?"

Sam groaned.

* * *

Dean whistled. "You weren't kidding when you said 'heavily warded'."

The four of them had arrived back at Bobby's place in the early hours of the morning, and after the long drive, had decided that catching Dean up on the news about the impending apocalypse would have to wait until they'd all caught up on sleep. Now it was late morning, and Dean was surveying the new sigils painted on Bobby's walls. Bobby, Sam, and Cass waited for him to sit down, each with hot mugs of coffee. Bobby had also left a whiskey bottle on the coffee table, just in case it became necessary once more. Dean looked warily between the bottle of whiskey and Bobby and Sam's faces, but poured himself a cup of un-spiked coffee and sat down on an armchair next to Bobby, facing the couch where Sam and Cass sat at opposite ends.

"Okay, what's the deal?" Dean asked. "What's so important that you couldn't tell me without these crazy symbols on the walls?"

Cass looked at Sam, and then at Bobby. They had not actually discussed the way to have this conversation, and she had been hoping that one of them would be willing to start the explanation, but both Sam and Bobby were looking at her expectantly. Cass sighed.

"The reason I helped Sam and Bobby to rescue you early was to try to prevent the Apocalypse."

"The Apocalypse," Dean repeated flatly. Cass nodded. Dean rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then looked to Sam and Bobby in turn, disbelief clear on his face. " _Seriously_?"

"Look," Cass said tiredly. "I know my name is Cassandra, but if we could just skip the whole 'not believing me when I tell you about the future' thing, this conversation will go a lot more smoothly. Sam and Bobby clearly believe me, and you trust them, don't you?"

"We're not idiots, Dean," Bobby added. "You really think we didn't check her? Everything she's told us so far has checked out. And everything she's about to tell you has lore to back it all up. It may _sound_ crazy, but it's no joke."

"Okay, go on," Dean said, grudgingly. "You were saying something about an apocalypse?"

" _The_ Apocalypse," Cass corrected, taking a sip of coffee. "Like, the Biblical one. Four horsemen, end of days, Lucifer-walks-the-earth kind of Apocalypse."

"Lucifer," Dean echoed skeptically.

"I'm not even going to address how ridiculous your doubt about the existence of Lucifer is when we just rescued you from _Hell_ ," said Cass. "He exists. Right now, he's locked in a cage in Hell. In order to free him from his cage, 66 seals have to be broken. There's a few hundred seals, and I don't know what all of them are, but the first and last seals are very particular."

Cass hesitated, not sure how to phrase what came next. Bobby came to the rescue. "The first seal breaks when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. The point of savin' you—or at least, the point of savin' you _now_ , instead of when it was going to happen—was to prevent that first seal from breaking."

" _Did_ we prevent it?" Sam asked Cass, like this was only just now occurring to him. Maybe it was. "You never really explained what that means, just that it would've broken if Dean stayed in Hell."

"It didn't break," Cass said confidently. Then, lips twisting, she added, "For now."

"How can you be sure?" Sam pressed.

"We'd know by now," Cass said firmly. "And Ruby probably wouldn't have been half as furious with me."

"Hang on, what do you mean, the seal didn't break 'for now'?" asked Dean. His posture was tense, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "You got me out, didn't you?"

"I mean that the phrasing of the seal is pretty vague," Cass said carefully. "No offense, but you can't be the only righteous person who ever has been or ever will be in Hell. We've bought ourselves some time, at best. With both Heaven and Hell pushing for the Apocalypse to start, I don't think we'll be able to stop them from breaking the first seal forever."

Dean's face was strained. "Am I gonna get dragged back to Hell?"

"I… don't know." The thought hadn't occurred to her before. Cass furrowed her brow and tried to think through whether that would be possible, or probable. "I don't think so?"

"I'm not feeling very reassured, here."

"I mean, you weren't before, but the seal had already been broken by then," Cass said, then bit her lip uncertainly. "From here on out, my knowledge of future events is shaky at best. I can make educated guesses, but this situation isn't something I've seen before. Now, I'm _pretty_ sure you won't be dragged back to Hell. I suspect demons don't have the ability to reclaim a soul that's been personally rescued from the pit by an angel. All your old scars are gone, right?"

Dean nodded, though his hand twitched toward his upper arm, where she guessed he still bore a hand-print in the same place.

"Then I wouldn't be surprised if all traces of the contract had been scrubbed from your soul."

"How sure is 'pretty sure'?" Dean pressed, still looking anxious. Cass bit her lip again and did some hasty hypothetical math.

"Eighty percent?"

" _Great_."

"I _think_ there are ways to reveal the words of a demonic contract printed on a human's soul." Cass looked to Bobby, because if anyone knew how to do a spell like that, it would be him. "If we could do a spell like that and it came up clean, we'd know for sure."

"Bobby?" asked Dean.

"I'll look into it."

"Okay, so, let's say they can't get Dean," Sam said. "They'll try to get someone else, right?"

"Probably, yes," said Cass.

"So, how do we stop them?" Sam was looking at her for an answer. Cass shrugged.

"Beats me. Public health campaign about the dangers of making crossroads deals?" Sam frowned at her, unimpressed.

"How about we just gank every demon sonofabitch who shows its face topside?" Dean suggested darkly.

"Really, Dean?" Sam managed to sound both scolding and sarcastic at the same time. "There's gotta be hundreds of demons running around on earth right now, and who knows how many more just waiting in Hell."

"Thousands," said Bobby. "Tens of thousands, at least."

"And we don't have the Colt," Sam added. "All we've got is Ruby's knife, and there's only one of those. We could kill a dozen demons a day and die of old age before we even made a dent in their numbers. And in the meantime, they'll have found another righteous man."

"What about Heaven, huh?" Dean turned to look at Cass. "Where's your angel pals? Why can't they deal with this?"

"They want the Apocalypse to start, too."

"Okay, you know what?" Dean set down his coffee mug and leaned back, folding his arms and watching Cass steadily. "Every question I ask, I just end up with ten more. How about you just _tell_ us how things are supposed to happen, huh?"

"Fine." Cass set down her own mug as well and interlaced her fingers tightly. "After a few months, Sam gave up on saving you. He'd tried everything and there was nothing else he could do, so he devoted his time to revenge instead, trying to hunt down Lilith. And of course, Ruby showed up, encouraging him to use his psychic powers to exorcise demons and go after her. Once the first seal was broken, an angel named Castiel saved you from Hell on Heaven's orders. The next several months were basically fighting a losing battle, trying to prevent the seals from breaking. And all the while, the angels kept trying to convince you to support them, because you're supposed to be the archangel Michael's vessel. In the end, Ruby manipulates Sam into breaking the final seal, which is killing Lilith, and Lucifer rises."

Dean blinked at her. Cass wondered just how much of that info-dump had managed to sink in.

"But the world doesn't end there, right?" Sam tiled his head curiously at Cass. "You said there were, like, 15 seasons of this show."

"Yes, I did," Cass agreed. "Lucifer rising is the finale of Season 4. You defeat Lucifer at the end of season 5, but it involves you allowing him to possess you, and then fighting for control of your body just long enough to jump into Lucifer's cage, pulling Michael along with you. You're rescued from that eventually, but it's an incredibly traumatic experience and you kind of go a bit insane. So I think we'd all like to avoid that, if we can."

Sam stared at her, open-mouthed. Bobby wasn't much better. Dean leaned forward and said, "You said killing Lilith is the final seal?" Cass nodded. "What happens if we kill her now? Before the first seal or any of the others get broken?"

"Breaking the lock, essentially." Cass hummed thoughtfully. It hadn't occurred to her before, but it was actually a pretty brilliant solution. "I don't see any reason it _wouldn't_ work." She looked to Bobby, who would be more knowledgeable than she was on the lore surrounding the seals. For all she knew, there was a book in his library that contradicted her. But Bobby was looking cautiously optimistic.

"It's worth a shot," he said. Dean looked back to Cass again.

"Alright, then. How do we kill her?"

"I'm… not sure," Cass said, frowning. Before any of them could protest, she clarified, "In the show, I saw Sam kill her with his psychic powers. I'm not sure what else can kill her—what it takes to kill a demon seems to depend a lot on how old and powerful the demon is. Lilith is the oldest, but not the most powerful, I don't think, so I'm not sure what it would take to kill her. The Colt might do it, or Ruby's knife. Possibly an angel blade, if we could get hold of one."

"An angel blade?" asked Dean.

"Standard weapons used by angels," she explained. "They can kill demons, much like Ruby's knife can, but they can kill angels, too."

"Is there anything you know that would kill her for _sure_?"

"Other than Sam?" Cass frowned, thinking. "Death's scythe can kill anything…" She trailed off. She didn't even want to mention the First Blade. It might work, but it definitely wouldn't be worth the risk.

"Wait, hold on," Sam said, looking between Dean and Cass with genuine confusion. "We already _know_ that I can kill her. Why do we need some other option?"

"Because it breaks the dumb seal," Dean said. "Weren't you listening?"

"Not if we do it out of order!" Sam said, then turned an appealing look to Cass. "Right?"

"I… don't think we want to do that."

"Why not?" Sam asked, frustrated. Dean narrowed his eyes at her.

"What are you not telling us?"

Cass picked at the hem of her shirt nervously. "I wasn't going to mention it, but…" she grimaced and looked at Sam. "You know how you got your powers because of demon blood when you were a baby? Well, in order to become powerful enough to kill Lilith… you kind of had to drink more. Like, a _lot_ more."

Sam stared at her, horrified. "You're kidding."

Cass winced. "I wish I was."

Dean turned to his brother angrily. "What the hell, Sam?!"

"Wh—" Sam huffed an offended breath. "I haven't _done_ anything!"

"Well, you were gonna!"

"Yeah? Well, I'm not the one who broke the first seal!"

"Boys!" Bobby raised his voice, and Sam and Dean fell quiet. "Stop snipin' at each other about stuff you ain't even done yet!"

"Look, I think we can all agree that trying to kill Lilith the same way I saw her killed is a bad idea," Cass said quickly, then frowned thoughtfully as another option occurred to her. "Actually… maybe we shouldn't kill her at all."

"Does she ever talk sense?" Dean asked, looking from Bobby to Sam. When he didn't get an answer, he asked Cass impatiently, "What happened to 'breaking the lock'?"

"We may not have to kill her to do it, I think," Cass said. "'The first demon shall be the final seal' is the way it's phrased. We might not have to kill her if we can cure her."

" _Cure_ her?" Sam repeated. "From what?"

"From being a demon," she said simply. "There's a ritual that can turn a demon back into a human being. We'd have to capture her first, but that should be easier than trying to kill her. Well, maybe. I hope."

"Back up," Bobby said firmly. "What kind of ritual are you talking about? How come I've never heard of this?"

"At this point it's only been done successfully once," Cass said, "But it _is_ possible."

"And just what is this ritual supposed to look like?"

"I'd have to review my notes for the specifics, but it's not terribly difficult. You inject the demon with purified blood—that is, the blood of a human who's just confessed—once an hour for several hours. And I think there's a modified exorcism involved at the end."

Bobby waited a moment, seemingly expecting her to continue. When she didn't, he raised his eyebrows. "That's it?"

"That's all it takes to cure a demon?" Sam asked, equally astonished.

"That's all it takes," Cass confirmed. Then she frowned again. "Though I admit, I don't actually know what happens to the person they were possessing, if the host is still alive."

"Okay, fine," said Dean. "So if we can't find a way to kill her, we cure her."

"We'll have to find her, first," Sam pointed out.

"And catch her in a devil's trap long enough to do the ritual," Bobby added. "Assuming we can even make it through her little army of demon flunkies."

"If you carve a devil's trap into a bullet and shoot it into a demon's vessel, they'll be powerless and unable to smoke out," Cass said helpfully. All three men stared at her, expressions caught somewhere between impressed amazement and frustration.

"Well, that would've been good to know a few _years_ ago," Dean ground out. "You got any other earth-shaking revelations for us? Secret to eternal life? Cure for werewolves?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Cass said, remembering it. "To the second one, anyway. There's one for vampires, too. I'll go through my notes and put together a list of everything that could be useful to you."

"Why don't you just let us read your notes?" Sam asked. He had that stubborn look on his face that he'd worn for the first week after she'd arrived.

"Partly because they're in code. I wasn't going to leave information that dangerous just laying around unencrypted," Cass explained slowly. "Partly because it would needlessly upset you. But most importantly, because I'm afraid you might get stupid, dangerous ideas."

"You think we're _stupid_?" Sam looked more surprised and hurt than angry, which Cass wasn't expecting. But she wasn't going to fall for the puppy-dog eyes on this.

"No. But I _do_ think you're easily motivated by vengeance, and that your Winchester penchant for self-sacrifice leads you to make bad long-term decisions. You know, like making deals with demons, or accidentally yanking people across dimensions." She paused, thinking, then added, "I'd be comfortable sharing the unedited version with Bobby, though. If you wanted to hear it."

"You really think he wouldn't just turn around and tell us what you told him?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised.

"I suspect he'll agree with me, once he actually hears all of it," Cass said, reasonably confident. Then she shrugged. "And if he doesn't, well… hopefully I live long enough to say 'I told you so'."

Dean and Sam both still looked rebellious, but Bobby interrupted before they could continue to argue.

"Okay, okay, quit it," he said firmly. "We can worry about what other secrets you've got written down in that diary of yours _after_ we've stopped the Apocalypse. For now, let's focus on finding Lilith."

Bobby gathered what he needed for the tracking spell and spread a detailed map of the United States flat on the coffee table. Then he placed his tracking device, a peculiar-looking pendulum hanging from a three-legged frame, on top of the map. He set the pendulum to swinging and then began to chant in Latin. Cass, having only ever studied a few words of Latin in passing, didn't understand much of it. It'd probably be worth learning, she thought, since she was evidently staying in this universe. But she was quickly distracted from this train of thought when the pendulum over the map began to swing and spin wildly. Bobby finished chanting, but instead of stopping over a particular place, the pendulum continued to make dizzying circles.

"What does that mean?" Sam asked Bobby, who looked troubled.

"Could mean she's not in the US," Bobby said, stopping the pendulum manually. He folded up the map of the United States and spread a map of the world out on the table instead. Bobby started the pendulum up again and performed the chant. Again, the pendulum spun wildly, never indicating a particular location. Bobby sighed. "Balls."

"What is it?" Sam asked. "Why isn't it working?"

"It means one of two things. Either she's not on earth anymore, or she's warded herself against tracking spells."

"She can do that?" Sam asked, sounding surprised. "I thought you said you could find anybody, as long as you had the right name."

"With the right spell, you can do damn near anything," Bobby said. "Including hide yourself from tracking spells. I can dig up some other rituals, more complex ones, but if she's warded herself against this, she's probably warded herself against those, too."

"Okay, prophet lady," Dean turned to Cass expectantly. "How'd we find Lilith again on that little soap opera of yours?"

"Not by spell," Cass said, thinking back. Her notes were upstairs, so she was relying on her recently-refreshed memory. She chose her words carefully. "I think Sam… interrogated a demon, who told him where she was going to be."

"Interrogated, huh." Dean repeated lowly, eyebrow raised and shooting a vaguely reprimanding look in Sam's direction. Sam himself looked a little queasy.

"I don't know if that'll work right now, though," Cass said quickly, hoping to diffuse the tension. "Last time, Lilith actually _wanted_ you to find her. Right now, she doesn't want to be found until the first 65 seals are broken. She'll try to lay low, and I'm gonna bet that any demons we could get our hands on wouldn't know her location."

"If tracking spells don't work, and twisting the arms of her minions won't work, just what the hell are we supposed to do?" Dean demanded. Bobby answered him.

"We hit the books."


	8. Trust

Cass lit up a cigarette as the sun was setting. She'd never had the chance to finish the one she'd bummed from the hotel clerk, so she'd bought herself a pack and a cheap lighter at one of their gas stops on the drive back. Her long explanation to Dean of what had happened and what was to come had been followed by several hours of frustrating research on tracking spells and demons for the boys and more careful transcription of anything that might be useful from her notes for Cass. Eventually they'd broken for dinner, after which Cass had wandered out into the salvage yard to escape the house and the tension therein.

It was a little like when she'd first arrived, Cass thought, except that now Dean was the Winchester brother casting her stubborn, mistrustful glances. Sam and Bobby had vouched for her, of course, but she didn't know how much that helped, since Sam's judgment of character had proven to be pretty hit-and-miss. She was sure Dean would warm up to her given enough time, and once Cass had somehow proven that she was really trying to help them and wasn't hiding any ulterior motives. Until then… well, the summer nights in Sioux Falls weren't so bad for a little star-gazing and self-destruction when she needed a break from it all.

Of course, this strategy only worked if no one followed her out to the junk yard.

"Mind if I join you?"

Cass exhaled smoke and eyed Dean cautiously. He was standing at a respectful distance, waiting for her answer. Of the three other people in the house, Dean was the last one she'd have guessed would seek her out for a private conversation. His body language was relaxed, though—it didn't seem like he'd come looking for a confrontation. So, reluctantly, Cass nodded. Dean strode forward and took a seat on the hood of the car she was already perched on, an arm's length away. Cass silently proffered the pack of cigarettes to him, more to be polite than because she actually expected him to take one. Dean hesitated, considering it, then took one of them from the pack.

"Why not," he said, shrugging. "I got new lungs, don't I?"

Cass pulled her lighter from her pocket and leaned over to light Dean's cigarette. He managed to look cool and composed for exactly three seconds before he coughed and tore it away from his lips. "Ugh, that's awful."

"You don't have to smoke it," Cass said, amused. Dean shook his head, holding the cigarette between two fingers and watching it burn.

"My dad caught me smoking one of these once," he said, gaze still fixed on the burning cherry. "I must've been fourteen, fifteen? He dragged me to the nearest gas station, bought a couple packs, and then he made me smoke 'em all 'til I threw up in the parking lot. Kinda lost the taste for it after that."

His voice was wry, wistful. Cass took a deep drag of her cigarette and watched the smoke cloud in the night air.

"I'm not much of a smoker, myself," Cass admitted. "I'll occasionally buy a pack to share at a party, or bum one when I'm out drinking, but I can usually count the number of cigarettes I've smoked in a year on one hand. But this is kind of a special situation, and under the circumstances I seriously doubt I'll live long enough to die of lung cancer, so…"

There was a beat of silence. Dean took another few drags of his cigarette, his new lungs growing accustomed to the smoke quickly enough. When he spoke again, his voice was low.

"You know what happened down there, don't you." It wasn't a question. Dean still didn't look at her, even when Cass glanced uncertainly at him.

"I know the gist of it," she said cautiously. This was not the direction she thought this conversation would go. Although in a way, she supposed it made sense. Dean had been through something incredibly traumatic in Hell, something he wouldn't be ready to talk about with Sam or Bobby or anyone for a long time, if ever. But Cass already knew, and she was a more neutral party than either his brother or the man who was like a second father to him. Those were probably attractive qualities in a confidante. Though she still didn't expect Dean to open up to her like this, barely a day after he'd gotten out of the pit.

"The first seal." Dean hunched forward a little. "It broke when I…"

"You didn't break it," Cass said firmly. "That was the whole point of springing you."

"But I would've. That's why you had to spring me in the first place, because I _would've_." Dean shook his head in disgust. "I kept telling myself that I never would, but deep down I knew it was only a matter of time. And now I _really_ know."

Cass had come out here to have a smoke and relax. She had _not_ been prepared to deal with Dean Winchester's self-loathing. Still, she sighed, took another drag, and gave it her best effort.

"That doesn't make you a bad person," she said steadily. "You think anyone else would have done any better? I wouldn't have lasted a day. You're a good man, Dean. That's why they wanted you. That's why it's a seal."

Dean had still been avoiding her gaze, but at those last words he turned to face her with a furrowed brow. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know the details, but a lot of the seals are about… contradictions. Opposites. Going against nature." Cass gestured vaguely in the air and took another drag. Dean watched her intensely. "Killing Lillith is supposed to be last, because 'The first demon shall be the last seal.' Another seal is killing reapers, literally killing the things that bring death. So the first seal, it can't just be anybody who breaks it. Lots of people go to Hell. Lots of people shed blood there. But for a good man, a righteous man, to shed blood in Hell? That takes a lot more."

Dean continued to stare, his face slowly growing more frustrated, not less. Cass took a nervous drag of her cigarette, and then nearly dropped it when Dean burst out, " _Why_ do I trust you?"

"What?"

"This whole thing is unbelievable," Dean said, voice rising. "I mean, angels? The apocalypse? _Alternate dimensions_? I'm a hunter, I believe in everything—everything but _angels_. I've seen too much ugly in the world to believe in Heaven, or God, or any of that bullshit." Dean pointed accusingly at Cass. "I oughtta be lookin' for hex bags, because the most reasonable explanation is that you're some kinda witch, and you've hoodwinked Sam and Bobby somehow. Or I never got out of the pit at all, and this is all just some new psycho torture they've cooked up, and I'll wake up any minute now to Alastair ripping out my fingernails, telling me I'll never really get out."

Cass opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She wasn't sure what to say. Dean went on, running a concerned hand over his face.

"But something in me just… _trusts_ you." He was giving her a narrow-eyed look that betrayed his words. "And that makes me suspicious as hell. And it makes me want to distrust you even more, but I can't! Why can't I distrust you?"

Cass stared at him, her cigarette forgotten. "I… don't know. Not that I'm complaining, but—that actually _is_ really weird. Like, _really_ weird."

Dean seemed at least marginally reassured by her honest confusion. Cass bit her lip in thought.

"You don't think it's just because Sam and Bobby trust me?" Cass knew what wasn't realistic the second the words left her mouth, but Dean's disbelieving look confirmed it. She shook her head, at a loss. "No, you're right. I'm sorry, I have no idea."

It really _was_ bizarre. Dean didn't just trust people, especially people displaying weird powers. Frankly, he had good reason not to. The fact that he did trust her was odd enough, but the fact that Dean himself recognized it and that he still trusted her somehow… that didn't seem _natural_.

"I believe you," Dean said, looking pained. "I shouldn't, but I do." He let out a sigh, then mustered something resembling a smile. "So, you don't have all the answers, after all."

"I'm not a prophet, or a seer," Cass said tiredly. "I've seen _one_ version of events, and I've already hugely altered them. I can give advice, or tell you about people or things that were going to come up somewhere along the lines—I can even help you solve a lot of your future hunts— but for everything big, from here on out I won't have any special knowledge."

"You have enough," Dean said. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Including some things you don't want me and Sam to know about. Don't think I've forgotten about that."

"You sold your soul to resurrect your brother," Cass said defensively. "You can't tell me you're above making rash decisions when it comes to your family."

"So it's about our family, huh?" Dean's triumphant smile quickly darkened. "You don't think we deserve to know that?"

Cass grit her teeth, then forced herself to relax. She took a long, calming drag of her cigarette, ignoring Dean's stubborn look. "I don't owe you shit, Winchester," she said finally, voice hard. She glared at him, just daring him to contradict her. "If anything, _you_ owe _me_. I helped pull your ass out of Hell. I'm helping you stop the Apocalypse. I think that's more than enough, considering I don't even belong in this dimension!"

Her voice had risen into a low shout by the end. Dean did not look swayed.

"Yeah, well, you're stuck here, aren't you?" He said simply. "It's not like you're trying to save the world out of the goodness of your heart. You're just trying to save your own skin."

"Go _fuck_ yourself."

Dean jerked back at the sheer venom in her voice, eyes widening. Cass went on, the frustration and grief and anger she'd been tamping down for weeks finally spilling out of her.

"You have your _family_ and your _life_. I'm not gonna sit here and be shamed for trying to keep the world spinning, as if it's selfish to want to stay alive! You want to know about the future? You want to know about your family?" Cass shook her head, lip curling and trembling as angry tears threatened to make her lose her composure. "Well _, tough_. You get to know exactly as much about the future of your family as I do about mine: _nothing!_ "

A single tear spilled over. Cass hitched a breath and put out her stub of a cigarette, scrubbing stubbornly at her face. She wasn't going to break down. Not here, not in front of Dean fucking Winchester. Dean, for his part, reached out a tentative hand, hovering over but not touching her shoulder. The hesitation was wise. Cass wasn't sure what she'd do if he laid a hand on her right now. She felt wild, out of control, like an injured animal.

"Cass—"

"No. _Fuck off_ , Winchester."

Cass pushed off the hood of the car, heading back inside. Dean, wisely, did not follow after her. She threw the back door open with a clatter, and Sam jolted to attention on the couch, where he sat with a book in his lap. His wary, alert face quickly melted into concern when he took in the tear tracks on her face and the redness of her eyes.

"Cass? Are you—"

"Fuck off, Sam."

These words were delivered without heat. Just as suddenly as the anger had come, it had fled. She didn't have the energy to sustain the anger and bitterness any longer. She was just _tired_. Tired, and sad, and so goddamn alone in this universe that shouldn't even exist, but which did, and that she had no place in. She trudged up the stairs to her room, locked the door, and let herself give in at last to the tears she'd been holding back, curling up and crying herself to sleep.

* * *

At first, Cass thought it was an earthquake. She'd experienced a few in her life, and it was the first explanation she could think of for why she'd jolted awake to find the entire house shaking. But it was not the _correct_ explanation, as she realized when the angels repeated themselves.

_Dean Winchester. We must speak with you._

Cass could hear scrambling and cursing from downstairs. Sighing, she rolled out of bed and walked carefully down the still-vibrating stairs, trailing her hand along the wall for support. At the bottom, Dean was turning around in a circle, looking half alarmed, half angry.

" _Who_ must speak with me? C'mon, you assholes, show yourselves!"

Bobby and Sam were exchanging worried glances. "Dean, who are you shouting at?"

Sam asked, looking like he was beginning to suspect that Dean had not come back from Hell 100% sane. Dean furrowed his brow, but before he could answer, the angels spoke again, their voices shaking the house and rattling the windows.

_You cannot look upon us._

"I'll look upon whatever the hell I want!" Dean shouted at the ceiling.

Sam was looking increasingly alarmed. "Uh, Dean?"

Cass sighed tiredly and marched past the three of them without a word, heading for the front door. She was still physically and emotionally exhausted, and it was too early for any of this shit.

_Tell us the name of the one who rescued you from perdition._

"I don't gotta tell you shit until you show yourselves!" Dean retorted.

Sam, meanwhile, had finally noticed Cass, and looked to her desperately as she unlocked the front door and twisted the handle. "Cass? Please say you know what's—"

Cass threw open the door. Nothing was there, obviously—or at least, nothing she could see.

"Get. Vessels." She glared at the air outside. "If you want to talk, _get vessels_. We're not having a conversation like this. You're going to knock the house down."

Slowly, the house stopped shaking. A high-pitched whine Cass hadn't even noticed disappeared, like the absence of the hum of electricity when the power goes out. The house fell quiet. Cass sighed and scrubbed at her eyes.

It really was too early for this.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Bobby demanded, looking between Cass and Dean. Dean shook his head, not knowing how to explain.

Cass said simply, "Angels." She made her way into the kitchen, hoping to God someone had already made coffee. They had, but all the shaking had spilled much of it all over the countertop. She poured herself a mug before starting to mop up the mess.

" _Angels_?" Sam repeated. "What did they want? Why were they attacking us?"

"They weren't." Cass took a sip of coffee, closing her eyes and taking a moment to appreciate how the taste grounded her. " _That_ was their idea of a friendly conversation."

"Conversation?" Bobby spoke this time, incredulous. "That awful high-pitched noise that nearly shook my house apart was their _voices_?"

"Yeah, well, their true forms are the size of skyscrapers, so it's not that surprising."

"What did they want?" asked Sam.

"They wanted to know who 'rescued me from perdition'," Dean said, looking to Cass. "They lookin' for you?"

"No." Cass hesitated, bobbing her head from side to side uncertainly as she reconsidered her answer. "I mean, they won't be happy with me, either, but they'll be looking for the angel that pulled you out." Cass bit her lip thoughtfully, frowning at Dean. "What really concerns me is that you could _understand_ them."

"How could I not?" Dean asked, confused. "It was like they were shouting through a megaphone right into my ear." He caught sight of the concerned look Sam and Bobby traded and turned to them demandingly. "What? You seriously didn't hear it?"

Bobby shook his head slowly. "It was all just a bunch of noise to me."

"Me, too," said Sam.

"The way I saw it," Cass said, tapping anxious fingers on her coffee mug, "you were in the same boat as Sam and Bobby. You're not _supposed_ to be able to understand their true voices."

"Why not?" Dean asked, beginning to look a little shaken now. "You could hear them, right?"

"Yes. I don't know why—most humans can't. A few special ones can, but I never learned any more about why that was." Cass shook her head. "I never saw a regular human who was able to understand angel voices. Frankly, I'm not concerned about myself—my whole existence here is an anomaly, so this isn't that weird for me, all things considered. What worries me is that, according to the version of events I saw, _you_ shouldn't be able to understand them. But you obviously can, and I have no idea what could have changed to make that happen."

"We can worry about the implications later," said Bobby. "I just wanna know if they're gonna try to bring my roof down around our ears."

"You told them to get vessels?" asked Sam. Cass nodded. "How long will that take?"

"I don't know." Cass lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "They require the consent of the host to possess someone, and not all of the willing are able. They could be back in hours, or days."

"What do you mean, 'not all of the willing are able'?" Dean asked warily.

"If your body isn't strong enough to contain the angel's grace—" Cass made a fist with the hand that wasn't holding her coffee and then expanded her fingers, making a wet popping noise with her mouth. "Like a water balloon."

"You're kinda scary before you're fully caffeinated, you know that?" Dean said, with the sort of blasé of a man in whose occupation the thought of people exploding like water balloons is not that unusual. By unspoken agreement, both he and Cass were pretending that their conversation from last night had never happened.

"Okay, so they'll be back eventually," Sam said, taking on the speculative tone Cass associated with him cooking up hunting plans or theories, back when all of this was a TV show. Unlike the TV show, though, Sam did not propose his own idea, but instead turned to Cass expectantly. "What do we do when they come back?

"I dunno." Cass shrugged. "Play dumb? I'd rather they _not_ find out about my part in all of this, since they're likely to torture me for information if they find out…" Then, with dawning horror, she realized aloud, " _Fuck._ I shouldn't have yelled at them."

Cass worried her lower lip, thinking. If she'd been thinking clearly before, she wouldn't have said anything—but no, then Dean might have responded to them, and there's no telling how _that_ conversation might have gone. Anyway, it didn't matter anymore what she _should_ have done. What she needed to do now was figure out a way to pull herself out of the hole she'd dug herself into.

"That's not gonna happen," Sam said firmly, reassuringly. If Cass didn't know any better, she might have believed him and felt comforted. It was easy to think he could protect her when he stood tall like that, broad shoulders back and eyes sharp. Unfortunately, she did know better.

"No offense, Sam, but there isn't a lot you could do to stop them if they tried," Cass said, trying to be gentle. "We don't have any weapons capable of killing angels. The most we can do right now is banish them for a while—I'll teach you the sigil."

Cass found the relevant portion of her notes in her room and returned downstairs to walk them through the sigil. It was fairly simple, so all three men had it down quickly. They drew a few banishing sigils in each room and, just in case, a few in strategic, mostly hidden places on the outside of the house, and on the front and back door. But then they were as prepared as they could be, and Cass had nothing to do but pace the front room and peek nervously out the window, jumping at small noises.

Bobby and Dean had retreated, Bobby to research more on angels, Dean to who knew where. Sam stayed to watch Cass pace agitatedly, a book on angels open in his lap, unread.

"You're really nervous," Sam said, voice lightly questioning. Cass shot him an unimpressed look at the statement of the obvious, then sighed and schooled her expression into something more charitable.

"Angels are ruthless," Cass said simply. "Anna was very much the exception to the rule on that front. No, not even that. She was just ruthless and on our side. If we were armed—" She laughed abruptly, humorlessly, and shook her head. "Who am I kidding? If _you guys_ were armed with something that could even make a scratch on an angel, then I'd feel a lot better. But you're not, so… yeah. I'm nervous."

Cass resumed her pacing, then jumped at a slight rustling noise outside. She peeked out from behind a curtain, hoping it would just be a squirrel or the wind, the way it had been the last few times she jumped.

No such luck.

"They're here." Cass quickly ducked back behind the curtain when she saw figures on the front lawn, hoping she hadn't been spotted.

"Dean! Bobby!" Dean's pounding footsteps were already coming down the stairs before Sam spoke—he must have seen the angels appear from an upstairs window. Bobby followed soon after him, and all three of them traded serious looks.

Bobby turned to Cass. "You stay inside." He nodded to the sigil nearest to her. "Be ready to activate that sigil if things get hairy."

"Gladly." She wouldn't pretend to be upset about being told to stay behind. She wanted to live free and un-tortured, and mouthing off to angels was not the best way to go about that. Dean, Sam, and Bobby all tromped out of the house through the front door and down the steps. Bobby closed the door firmly behind him, and Cass pressed her ear to it, listening.

"Dean Winchester." Cass furrowed her brow. That wasn't Castiel's voice. Who had come? "Tell us the name of the one who raised you from perdition."

"How about you tell me your names first, huh?" said Dean. Cass could practically see the defiant look on his face. "I don't see why I have to answer to you."

"I am Castiel." _There_ he was. But then, who— "This is Uriel. We are angels of the Lord."

"Oh, _fuck_." A part of her had known that more than one angel was speaking— the otherworldly voices had said 'we' and 'us', not 'me'— but she hadn't really thought about the implications. She certainly hadn't expected _Uriel_ to be here.

"Angels, huh." Dean sounded appropriately skeptical. "Right. And you're here, why?"

"We seek the one who pulled you from Hell," said Castiel.

"Why? So you can thank them for doing your job for you?"

"It was not yet your time to be saved," said Uriel. "Whoever rescued you disobeyed direct orders."

"Well, if you do find out who they are, let me know so I can write 'em a thank you note," Dean sassed. "I don't know who pulled me out. Hell, I don't remember anything except waking up in my own grave. How are you so sure it was an angel?"

"Their grace lingers on you." Castiel paused then added, puzzled, "It is… familiar."

" _Fuck_." Castiel had known Anna. Would he recognize whatever grace of hers had rubbed off on Dean when she saved him?

'Who is the woman cursing inside the house?" asked Uriel suspiciously. "The one who could hear our voices."

"She's no angel, if that's what you're asking," said Dean.

"She is not one of your known associates," said Castiel.

"Not one of—" Dean stopped.

Sam finished his thought. "Have you been _watching_ us?"

"Apparently not closely enough," said Uriel. "Who is she?"

"None of your business." Cass couldn't help the swell of affection she felt for Dean at the hard refusal in his voice. He might be a dick sometimes, but he was a _brave_ dick.

"I'm growing tired of your deceptions," said Uriel, impatience creeping into his tone.

"The fact that you've warded this house against us shows you know more than you should," Castiel said, though he still sounded more puzzled than upset.

"We may not be able to enter the house," said Uriel grimly, "but we can bring it down."

The house began to shake again, even more dramatically than before—because this time, Uriel was actually _trying_ to damage it. Cass froze for a moment, watching in horror as the walls rippled and books fell off shelves. Uriel wasn't bluffing. She'd have to face them, unless she wanted to be crushed by the second floor of the house collapsing down on her. Heart pounding, she turned to the front door and pulled it open.

Uriel smiled. It was an unfriendly expression, more like an animal baring its teeth than the human expression of warmth it imitated.

"Like rats," he said, satisfied, then narrowed his eyes at her. "Now. Who are you?"

"Cass Holmes," she said weakly. "I'm…" She trailed off. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she _could_ say.

In the end, she didn't have to say anything. Castiel spoke instead, looking somewhat awed.

"You are a Prophet of the Lord."

Cass stared at him, mouth open. He looked just the same as she remembered, complete with dark hair and trench coat, though his eyes were bluer than she had been anticipating. And he'd said… he'd said…

"She's a _what_?" Dean asked, voice rising.

"A Prophet," Castiel repeated, explaining to Dean without taking his eyes off of Cass. "A living conduit for the inspired word." He nodded towards her. "It's an honor."

"Inspired word," Sam said, brow furrowing. He cast a disbelieving glance over his shoulder towards Cass, his eyes darting between her and the angel. "You mean… the word of _God_?"

"Yes."

This couldn't be happening. It didn't make any damn sense. She wasn't a prophet. She wasn't even from this _dimension_. But Castiel was still looking at her with what could only be described as respect, and maybe even a little reverence. Uriel, meanwhile, was looking like he'd sucked on a lemon.

Cass finally found her voice, and croaked out a disbelieving, " _What_."

Castiel's lips flickered for the briefest moment into something like a smile. He turned to Uriel and said, "She reminds me of Luke."

"She reminds _me_ of Eve," Uriel said darkly. Cass shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and glanced to the side to make sure she was still in reaching distance of a banishing sigil, just in case. "Prophets are meant to watch and record, not interfere."

"Yeah, _you_ would say that," Cass muttered, stealthily pulling a small knife from her pocket so she could draw the blood needed to activate the sigil.

"What was that, ape?" Uriel said sharply.

"Uriel," Castiel said, sounding surprised and lightly reprimanding.

"Hey, uh, Castiel?" Cass said, keeping her eyes on Uriel. "Angels aren't allowed to harm a Prophet of the Lord, right? No matter what?" She knew the answer, but it would make her feel better for him to confirm it out loud, as a reminder.

"Of course not," Castiel said, brow furrowed, clearly not understanding why she would feel the need to ask such a question. "It would be a great offense against our Father. Any who dare to harm a Prophet face the wrath of the archangels."

"Good. That's good." Cass drew the blade along her hand, just enough to draw blood, and hovered her hand over the banishing sigil, in case her next words went badly. "Because, the thing is, Uriel over there is working for Lucifer."

" _What_?"

It wasn't just Castiel who spoke. Sam, Dean, and Bobby also turned to look at her, looking various shades of alarmed. Uriel closed his eyes, looking pained, though whether that was from the revelation or from the sheer effort of containing his desire to smite her, she couldn't say.

"This is why all the best prophets were men," Uriel said lowly, opening his eyes. "They knew their place."

"Uriel." More emotion than Cass thought Castiel was currently capable of was rolled up in that one word. Surprise, hurt, betrayal, denial. "You are my brother. We fought together, for _centuries_. When did you forsake our father?"

Uriel sighed. "This is not how I wanted you to find out, Castiel. But it's not too late. You can still join us."

"Us?"

"The others in our garrison who have seen sense," Uriel said appealingly, "who care for angels and not these whining, puking larva! Together, we can raise our brother!"

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "You mean Lucifer."

"You do remember him?" Cass wasn't sure if Uriel hadn't heard Castiel's hard tone, or if he was just ignoring it. "How strong he was? How beautiful? And he didn't bow to humanity. He was punished for defending _us_. Now, if you want to believe in something, Castiel, believe in him."

"Lucifer is not God," Castiel said roughly.

"God isn't God anymore," Uriel said impatiently. "He doesn't care what we do."

Castiel shook his head, just once, and said, "I still serve Him." And then an angel blade fell out of his sleeve and into his hand.

Uriel sighed again, looking genuinely regretful. A blade of his own appeared in his hand. "You haven't even met him. There is no will. No wrath. No God."

Castiel did not answer. At the same time, they two angels launched themselves at each other, silver blades flashing furiously.

"Cass!" Cass glanced away from the fight to see that Sam, Dean, and Bobby had backed away from the scene, toward the door and, in Bobby's case, toward one of the banishing sigils painted on the outside of the house. Dean continued, alarmed, "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know, but you better hope to God the one in the trench coat wins," Cass said bluntly.

"Let me guess," he said, "this is another thing that wasn't supposed to happen?"

"I told you already," Cass said, voice rising with panic as Castiel just barely dodged a stab from Uriel. "The more things change, the less I know."

Her fingers were still hovering over the sigil, but she didn't know what would happen if she activated it while they were fighting. She didn't want to risk hurting Castiel.

"Should we help?" asked Sam.

"I don't know. Maybe?" She shook her head. "No, you can't. You don't have an angel blade and—"

Castiel spun, trench coat flying, and managed in one motion to twist Uriel's angel blade out of his hand and kick him so hard in the chest that he flew backwards, folding the junked car he landed on nearly in half. Castiel strode forward with the cold eyes of a soldier, hand gripped tight around the angel blade. Uriel looked up at Castiel once more, looking resigned. And then, with a flash of light, Uriel's vessel was crying, falling forward off of the car and curling into a protective crouch, but presenting his clasped hands to Castiel like he was in prayer.

"I have a family," he said quickly. "Don't hurt me, _please…_ "

Castiel stood before him and sighed. Uriel's vessel flinched as Castiel reached on hand out to him and pressed his fingers to his forehead.

"Sleep," said Castiel, softly. Uriel's vessel slumped to the ground.

There was a long beat of silence, during which all of the conscious humans stared at Castiel, and Castiel stared at the sleeping form of Uriel's vessel, looking lost. Dean was the one who found his voice first.

"Okay, _what_ just happened?"

Castiel blinked, looking like he was waking up from a daydream. He turned to Dean and said, in a vaguely clinical tone, "Uriel abandoned his vessel. He has likely joined his comrades in Hell. He will not be welcome in Heaven now that his treachery is discovered."

Then, turning his very blue eyes to Cass, he said in a voice that wasn't clinical at all, "What am I meant to do?"

Cass swallowed hard. She didn't envy his position, and she couldn't imagine what he must be feeling right now. Slowly, she drew away from the front door and walked down to sit on Bobby's front steps, then patted the wood beside her with her unbloodied hand.

"Come sit down, Castiel," she said, as gently as she could manage. "I'm afraid there's more you need to hear."

Stiffly, Castiel obeyed. Cass was somewhat surprised by how tall he was in person. Even after he perched awkwardly on the step beside her, it was clear he must have a good five inches on her. She supposed he simply looked shorter when stood next to Dean and Sam, who were tall and giant respectively, and who now stood next to Bobby, leaning on the porch railing and listening intently.

Cass blinked in surprise when, once seated, Castiel reached over without a word and took her bloodied left hand in his. He clasped his own hands around hers for a brief second, and when he let go, the small cut she'd made on her palm was gone, along with all the blood. Then he sat looking at her, wide-eyed, ready to hang on her every word. Cass shifted uncomfortably.

"Thank you," she said, rubbing her hands in amazement before looking back at Castiel. "I'm sorry. About Uriel."

Castiel's brow furrowed. He seemed to take a moment to think, and then he said, sounding apologetic himself, "I don't understand your apology."

"It's not—" Cass cut herself off. She'd forgotten how literal Castiel was at times, before he became more used to being around humans. She thought for a moment, then rephrased. "What I meant, is that it makes me sad to know that you feel pain because of his actions."

"You are experiencing empathy," Castiel said, his voice clinical once again.

"Yes."

Castiel's brow furrowed again. "Is that what I needed to hear?"

"No," Cass sighed. "What you need to hear is… There are three kinds of angels right now. There's the ones on Lucifer's side, like Uriel, who hate and resent humanity and want to wipe us all out. Then, there's the angels who are loyal to Michael and Raphael, who don't really care about humanity, but who are all about following orders. Both of those groups want to start the Apocalypse—the first with the express goal of killing all of humanity, and the second not caring one way or the other how many humans get caught in the crossfire."

Castiel listened to all of this quietly, face unreadable. Then he said, "And the third?"

"Angels like you," Cass said gently. "Angels who actually want to protect humanity."

Castiel still looked lost. "But what am I supposed to _do_?"

"I can't tell you what to do, Castiel," Cass said, apologetically. "I can only tell you what I know."

Castiel absorbed that for a second. Then he asked, "Do you know the name of the angel that saved Dean Winchester from Hell?"

"Why?" Dean cut in, leaning over the porch railing to stare suspiciously at Castiel. "So you can go tell your angel buddies? So you can hunt her down?"

Castiel ignored Dean, keeping his eyes on Cass. "She is one of this third group, isn't she?" He paused, then said, haltingly, "I would like to know that I am not alone."

Cass considered the look on his face. He seemed sincere enough, and he was looking incredibly lost, and lonely. She decided it was safe to tell him.

"Anna."

Castiel stared at her. Then, abruptly, he stood up and marched up the steps of Bobby's porch, where he approached Dean and squinted hard at him.

"Hey, man," Dean said, trying to push the angel backwards, without success. "Personal space!"

Castiel took a single step backwards, looking crestfallen. "That is why the grace is so familiar," he said lowly. "She gifted the last of it to you."

"She what, now?" Dean said, voice rising.

"Anna," Castiel said. "What is left of her lives in you."

"I've got an _angel_ inside me?" Dean whirled to face Cass, and said accusinging, "You said they needed consent!"

"Anna is dead," Castiel said bluntly. Cass sucked in a surprised breath. "She is not 'inside you'. She must have passed on what little grace she had left before she perished."

Dean gaped at him. "What?"

"She _did_ say saving Dean on her own was basically a suicide mission," Cass said softly. She felt shaken. It had never occurred to her that Anna might actually _die_. "I didn't realize she meant it so literally."

Castiel closed his eyes, looking pained. Dean, still edging away from him, said, "You, uh—you knew her well?"

"She was my commander, once," said Castiel, sounding distant. "I looked to her for leadership, before she fell." Then he said, eyes downcast, "I _am_ alone."

"No, you're not," Cass said quickly. "There's other angels out there who want to protect humanity, who really do want to stop the Apocalypse from happening. They just don't realize right now that obeying Michael's orders isn't the way to do it."

Cass raised his head to look at her. "Then it falls to me to tell them," he said, slowly, like he was piecing together a puzzle. "To show them another way."

Cass wished she could take away the pain in his eyes, wished she could tell him that he didn't have to walk the hard road before him, but she couldn't. They needed Castiel on their side. They needed him to rebel. "I'm afraid it does."

Castiel nodded gravely, with the resigned look of a man about to walk to the gallows. "If that is God's will, then I will see it done."

Cass opened her mouth to correct him, to tell him that it wasn't God's will, that he just needed to do what was right by him, but he was already gone, vanished into thin air with a small _whoosh_.

Everyone was quiet for a beat. Then Dean turned to Cass and demanded, "What the _hell_ was that?"

"I _think_ ," Cass said, wincing, "that was me accidentally starting a civil war in heaven."

"Since when are you a Prophet of the Lord?" Dean pressed, looking pissed.

"I don't know!"

"How is that even possible?" Sam asked, leaning forward across the railing. "I mean, you're not even from this dimension."

"I don't know!" Cass repeated. "Contrary to what Castiel seems to think, I don't have God whispering in my ear."

She _had_ spoken to God, of course, but they didn't need to know that. And at the time, he certainly hadn't mentioned anything about making her a _prophet_. Though she supposed he was really the only one she could blame for this. After all, at this point in the timeline, _he_ was supposed to be the 'Prophet of the Lord'. Maybe he had switched the mantle over to her after their conversation. While she certainly appreciated having a very good reason for angels not to torture her for information, she wasn't sure that being a Prophet of the Lord would be a net positive. She didn't want to end up like Kevin Tran, the poor kid.

"All I know is what I've seen," Cass said, rather than betraying her thoughts. "As far as I know, I shouldn't be a prophet."

"Any chance it's some kind of mistake?" asked Bobby.

"I doubt it," Cass said, lips twisting in thought. "The names of all the prophets are ingrained in angels' brains. Both Castiel and Uriel recognized me as a prophet, which means that it must be in their…" Cass waved her hand vaguely. "Their _source code._ "

"So _all_ the angels out there know you're a… a prophet?" Dean said.

Cass shrugged, and nodded. "On the upside, I don't have to worry anymore about being tortured for information. They're not allowed."

"Wait a second," Sam said, peering at Cass with intense interest. "Their 'source code'? What do you mean, 'source code'?"

"I mean, there isn't some angel Sunday school where they learn the names of all the prophets like we learn the alphabet," Cass explained. "They're just born—or, I guess, _created_ knowing."

"But if they're created knowing, then your name must have been in the code for…" Sam paused. "For _thousands_ of years."

Cass wasn't sure she liked where he was going with this. "Yes?"

"What are you trying to say here, Sam?" asked Dean impatiently.

"I'm saying, maybe bringing Cass here wasn't just some accident," Sam said quickly, sounding half-excited, half-amazed. "I'm saying—maybe I was _supposed_ to flub the ritual. Maybe you were always meant to come here."

"I'm from a different _universe_ ," Cass said, disbelieving. "The version of events I've seen isn't even what's happening. How does that make any sense for a prophet?"

"Sister, none of this makes any goddamn sense," Dean said flatly. He wasn't wrong. Cass rubbed at the tension headache building in her temples and groaned.

Bobby leaned forward to look at her. "So, Prophet—should we be worried about the _angel war_ you just started?"

Cass sighed tiredly. "Yeah, probably."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know at least a few of you were excited about seeing more of Anna, so I'm sorry I've killed her. It's not like there are a lot of strong female characters in these early seasons, and what few there are don't last long. I hate to contribute to the trend of killing them all off, but unfortunately, I just couldn't see a way for her to get Dean out and survive unscathed. I think the show mentions that while Castiel did the actual "raising from perdition", there was actually a garrison of angels which went down to do the deed—which makes sense, considering. (I can't find an actual episode reference for that, but the wiki tells me it's true, so that's what I'm going with.) Also, once Dean broke the seal, I doubt Hell really cared whether Heaven busted him out, so I doubt they'd be putting up too much of a fight. But in this story, the first seal hasn't broken yet, which means Anna was one angel facing down the full and very motivated forces of Hell. Anna's a badass, so she managed it with a little bit of grace left to spare.
> 
> In my head, she might have been able to survive, but she wouldn't have lasted long on the run with all the damage she took in her assault on Hell, and she knew it. So instead of clinging onto her own life, she breathed the last of her grace into Dean instead, making her final act one of standing with humanity and giving a big middle finger to Heaven in the process.
> 
> Also, thank you to everyone who's reviewing, I really do appreciate it. I don't reply much to comments, but seeing the notifications in my inbox really does make my day.


	9. The Same Team

It was a lucid sort of nightmare. Cass knew she was asleep, but she wasn't quite aware enough to take control of the dream. Instead she was trapped, knowing that what she saw wasn't real, but powerless to do anything about it or to wake herself up.

The dream started in the mall she'd gone to with Pamela last week. She'd been flipping through racks of clothing, not really looking for anything in particular, and then she'd glanced up to see her sister.

"Alex?"

Alex was sitting at a little plastic table outside of a pretzel booth, popping the last bite of a buttery pretzel into her mouth. She didn't seem to hear Cass calling her name, even as she repeated it louder, shouting for her sister to wait as she pushed her way out of the store, dodging racks of clothing. Alex paid her no heed, disposing of her trash and standing up from the table. By the time Cass made it out of the store, Alex had disappeared into the crowd.

It went on like that for ages. Hints of familiar faces and voices, always just out of reach. Sometimes Cass would get close, but then Sam or Bobby would appear out of nowhere, shoving a book into her hands and telling her to read. She tried to push past them, but they held onto her, pulling her away, telling her that reading these books was important, and that no one was there, anyway.

And then Dean was there too, staring down at her without mercy, puffing on a cigarette and blowing the smoke directly in her face, sneering. "Yeah, well, you're stuck here, aren't you?"

He flicked the cigarette at her. Cass flinched away from the burning cherry—

And jolted herself awake.

For a while, Cass just lay in bed, steadying her breathing and letting her heartbeat slow down. She didn't want to go back to sleep, not right away. If she did, she was afraid she might slip right back into the same unsettling dream she'd just broken free from.

She glanced at her laptop and considered opening it, but decided against it. She didn't have the energy for any more work now. She'd already been at it for hours before she'd finally gone to sleep, poring over her notes and pulling out anything she thought the Winchesters might find useful, but which wouldn't be too dangerous to tell them. For now, it was just about the only productive thing she could do, since there was nothing they could do right now about the possible angelic civil war Cass had inadvertently started. All they could do was focus on a way to track down Lilith and try to break the lock of Lucifer's cage before the forces of Hell found another way to break the first seal.

Consolidating her notes into something she was comfortable sharing with the Winchesters was going to be a time-consuming task, to say the least. Not only had she written all of her notes with her eyes closed, and in a code that only she would understand, but the information was also overwhelming in its sheer quantity. She had re-lived her memories of watching Supernatural in chronological order, and since there was no way to remember what would or would not be important later on, she had written down _everything_ , resulting in a huge notebook filled with detailed transcripts of every episode through season 11, plus a random smattering of information after that which she'd gleaned from watching the occasional episode or seen posts about on social media.

So now, Cass was transcribing all of that onto her laptop and attempting to put it in some kind of sensible order, all the while considering just which pieces of the vast amounts of information she had access to could actually be useful now that she'd completely disrupted the natural course of events. It was like building a fan wiki from scratch, and it was exhausting.

She wouldn't get any meaningful work on that project done tonight, though. She reached past the laptop to pick up an old, faded flannel shirt that had almost certainly belonged to Sam at one point, based on how many times she had to roll up the sleeves. The fabric was incredibly soft from wear, and it was still a favorite of hers to slip on like a robe over her tank top and sleep shorts, even after her little shopping trip with Pamela. Cass crept down the stairs carefully, avoiding the creaky steps and heading towards the kitchen on nearly silent feet.

There was a glow coming from inside the kitchen. Cass froze in the middle of Bobby's library, the light and the low sound of voices making her go still. Her first thought was that it was an angel, visiting in the night like she'd seen a few times before, but a quick glance around the darkened room showed that the warding sigils on the walls were still perfectly intact. And, listening carefully as she held her own breath, she could make out the sort of muted, tinny quality of recorded voices.

" _You guessed wrong,"_ a low voice said, barely audible.

Cass crossed the rest of the distance toward the kitchen slowly, but making no effort to keep her steps light anymore. She didn't want to startle a hunter, especially the one she guessed was awake and watching videos in the kitchen. From inside, there was a crow of recorded laughter.

" _You only think I guessed wrong—that's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned. You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.' But only slightly less well known is this—"_

"Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line," Cass finished, still keeping her voice low as she paused in the kitchen doorway.

Dean did not even blink. He leaned back slightly from the screen, which turned out to be not the laptop Cass had been expecting, but a tiny old portable TV-VCR combo she figured had to date back to the early nineties, if not the late eighties. It had an antennae and everything.

As Vizzini cackled on screen, Dean aked neutrally, "Can't sleep?"

Cass shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. All things considered, Dean was the best person she could have found in the kitchen at this hour. He was the least likely person in the house to press her about bad dreams or trouble sleeping even under normal circumstances, and certainly not when he was sitting hunched over the kitchen table, watching _The Princess Bride_ on VHS at two in the morning.

"Water tastes better out of the kitchen tap than the bathroom faucet," she said lamely.

Dean shrugged and turned back to the movie, apparently satisfied that he wouldn't be asked to deal with her nightmares or, more likely, be asked about his own. Cass poured herself a glass of water from the kitchen tap and leaned against the sink as she slowly sipped, listening to Buttercup realize that the Dread Pirate Roberts was actually her beloved Westley.

The thing was, she didn't want to go back upstairs. Her little nightmare was utterly tame compared to the literal demons that must haunt Dean in his sleep, but that comparison didn't make her any more eager to return to her own bed. Cass took her time drinking the first glass of water, then poured herself a second and began to sip it even more slowly than the first.

At that, without glancing back, Dean pushed out a second chair at the kitchen table. Cass hesitated, feeling rather guilty for intruding, but ultimately the seat anyway, figuring Dean wouldn't have made the gesture if she was truly unwelcome. Dean did not look away from the movie, so Cass quickly turned her own attention to it as well, only stealing occasional glances to reassure herself that Dean wasn't silently fuming at her for interrupting his time alone. But after a while, seeing Dean gradually lean back in his chair, Cass began to wonder if her presence was not just not resented, but possibly even welcomed—likely for the same reasons that Cass had been relieved to find Dean in the kitchen, rather than Bobby or Sam.

Of course, Dean's relaxed demeanor only lasted until the scene with the machine in the pit of despair. It had been a while since Cass had seen this movie, and she'd quite forgotten that the classic movie she'd enjoyed as a child included a torture scene. Judging by the way Dean's fists clenched on the table, he had, too.

"So," Cass began awkwardly, breaking the silence and talking over the uncomfortable scene. Dean did not seem to mind the interruption, looking away from the screen to raise an eyebrow at her. "D'you just keep VHS tapes around in your trunk next to all your guns and silver knives and stuff?"

"Nah. Bobby keeps this thing in a closet with the only other tape that survived me and Sammy's childhood," he said, jerking his head at the ancient TV. "It was this or _White Christmas._ "

"Classics, both." _White Christmas_ definitely didn't have any torture in it, but it _was_ summer.

"We used to have _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ , too, but we wore out the tape." A nostalgic little smile flickered on Dean's lips, then died. "And I don't even know what happened to the Scooby Doo tapes."

"Maybe Bobby threw them out," Cass joked. "Sets a bad example for children, teaching them there's no such thing as ghosts and monsters."

Dean huffed a quiet breath of amusement. "Yeah, maybe."

And then the scene was over, and the two of them fell quiet again as Westley was revived, the castle was stormed, and Buttercup was saved. When the movie was over, Cass put her glass in the sink and climbed the stairs to return to bed. Dean stayed behind, and Cass imagined that when the credits were done, he'd press rewind and start the movie over again from the beginning, and it wouldn't be long before the tape of _The Princess Bride_ went the way of _Who Framed Roger Rabbit._

* * *

The thought of transcribing more of her notes wasn't much more palatable in the morning light than it had been at two AM. So instead of picking up her laptop, Cass picked up her running shoes.

She hadn't gone for a run since she'd been here, though she'd been in the habit of running three or four times a week before. When she'd first arrived she hadn't had any proper shoes, and then once she got shoes she'd been preoccupied with Anna and Dean and… well, everything. But she might have made time for it anyway, if it weren't for the fact that she'd been wary of going out for a run all alone.

She had a lot of valuable information in her head, and a lot of very powerful beings who would be very interested in getting it out of her. Cass wasn't kidding herself—she might be able to defend herself against an average human, or at least outrun them, but she wouldn't stand a chance against an angel or a demon. Her near miss with Ruby just days ago had proven that. All in all, it was much safer to stay in Bobby's well-protected house.

But now that she was apparently a Prophet of the Lord and Archangels were required to assure her safety, she figured she was about as safe as she could get.

Sam looked up from an enormous book when Cass came down the stairs and raised his eyebrows at her when she began to tug on her shoes. "Going somewhere?"

"I thought I'd go for a run." Cass paused. It hadn't occurred to her to ask before, but she was pretty sure Sam went for runs at least occasionally on the show—she seemed to recall a few instances of him returning to whatever run-down motel room he and his brother were staying in in workout clothes, having worked up a sweat somehow. She didn't know when he'd picked up the habit, though. "You're welcome to come, if you want?"

Sam looked surprised at the invitation, and Cass rushed to add, "No pressure, of course. I'm sure…" Cass leaned over and tilted her head to the side to get a look at the title of Sam's book. "Uh, _Recordes of the Evylls of Demons,_ is very engaging."

Sam huffed a laugh that was only half-amused and shut the book. "No, that… sounds pretty good, actually. Give me a minute to change?"

Cass nodded and busied herself getting her laces just how she liked them. Asking Sam to join her had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, mostly to be polite, and now she was feeling a little nervous.

She didn't _want_ to avoid Sam. She'd only started because it seemed like every conversation they had ended up in disaster, either because Cass kept bringing up the unfortunate truth that none of this would be happening to her if Sam hadn't summoned her in the first place, or because Sam was alternately pressing her for information or trying too hard to have a heart-to-heart conversation that Cass wasn't prepared to handle. But Cass couldn't avoid him forever. They were living in the same house, working towards the same goals. He was going to be around. They'd just have to find some sort of middle ground.

Being around Bobby was easy. Even Dean was easier to be around than Sam, now that they'd got their shouting match out of the way. They'd yelled at each other, got it out of their systems, and then moved on, not feeling the need to bring it up again. They were on the same team, and that was the most important thing. It wasn't complicated.

Her relationship with Sam, on the other hand, Cass was certain would _always_ be complicated.

"Ready?"

Cass stopped fiddling with her laces and straightened up as Sam came down the stairs. He was wearing shorts, which was… weird. Well, it was normal for running—Cass was wearing shorts, too, since it was already nearly 70 outside and the day would only be getting hotter. But it was still weird to see him in something other than flannel, and it was more skin than she had ever seen on him in person. It gave her a feeling of _wrongness_ , like the way she'd felt in high school when she'd run into one of her teachers at the grocery store. She shook her head and pushed those thoughts out of her mind as they left Bobby's house and began to run along the side of the country road, putting the sun behind them.

For the first mile, Sam stayed quiet, matching Cass's pace. Cass knew the silence couldn't last forever, but she couldn't think of anything to say. Sam was the one who ultimately broke it.

"You okay?" Cass looked over at Sam in surprise, not expecting the question. At her look he explained haltingly, "Yesterday, with the angels… you seemed pretty shaken."

Cass pressed her lips together briefly, considering her answer. "I don't know. It's completely different from what I've seen, obviously. And that's scary, because it means I don't know what's going to happen." Cass shook her head. Her new status and all its implications still hadn't fully sunk in yet. "I'm not even supposed to _be_ here. I certainly shouldn't be a Prophet."

Sam was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "But what if you are?" At Cass's puzzled look, he clarified, "Supposed to be here. I mean, if your name has been in the angel source code for thousands of years…"

Cass very strongly suspected that it hadn't been. She would bet good money that Chuck had just penciled her name in during or after their conversation as a fun little surprise to make things interesting, but she couldn't tell Sam any of that even if she wanted to, thanks to Chuck's other little present: the curse that prevented her from revealing his secrets.

So instead Cass shook her head and said simply, "I just don't buy it." And then, to avoid an argument, she added, "But I guess it doesn't matter, anyway. I'm here, whether I'm supposed to be or not. I'll just have to make the best of it."

Sam nodded, then furrowed his brow. His steps slowed to a walk, and then to a stop. Cass stopped a few steps ahead of him, confused. "What's up?"

She'd almost said _What did I say now?_ , because apparently the only things that happened when she opened her mouth around Sam were arguments or guilt trips, but she'd made a deliberate effort to be optimistic just now, so she didn't know why Sam was suddenly looking so tortured and guilty.

"I just realized," Sam said slowly, troubled, "I never thanked you. For saving Dean, for… any of it."

Of course. Sam hardly needed her help—he found his own reasons to beat himself up. He drew a long breath, looking earnest and probably preparing to give a speech about how he could never thank her enough for saving his brother, but Cass held up a hand to stop him.

"Please, don't."

Sam shut his mouth. Cass watched him sink in on himself, his face falling, and she stepped forward with a sigh to catch his gaze again.

"Sam." Her voice was low and calm, and the lack of anger in it made Sam meet her eyes. "We're on the same team, here. I don't want to keep score on this kind of thing anymore. I want to help you, and I want you to help me, and I don't want to fuss about thanks yous or apologies anymore unless we _really_ fuck up."

Because they probably _would_ fuck up at some point. Cass wasn't _that_ optimistic. But she pressed on. "Can we do that? Please?"

Sam searched her face for a long moment, and Cass held her breath, waiting. Finally Sam nodded, a small, self-deprecating smile appearing briefly before he said, "Yeah. Alright."

Cass sighed with relief and stepped out of Sam's personal space. " _Thank_ you."

This time Sam's smile was more sincere, his voice teasing as he pointed out, "You just broke your own rule."

Cass rolled her eyes and glared at him without heat. "Not what I meant and you know it. Now can we run?"

They returned to their prior pace, and the mood was much more relaxed now that they'd cleared the air. It felt good to run again, and now that the tension was gone Cass could actually enjoy the feeling of her feet hitting the pavement, of breathing fresh morning air and getting her heart pumping again. It was even kind of nice to have company, since she usually listened to music on her runs but didn't have a portable music player in this universe.

After a while, Sam broke the silence again, his voice a little mischievous but laced with challenge. "Race you to that tree."

Cass looked at the tree he'd indicated, which sat at the corner of a driveway maybe a quarter of a mile down the road. Cass shook her head. "Are you kidding? You're a giant. You'd clear that distance in, like, five steps."

Sam scoffed. "You're exaggerating." He paused, making a show of thinking about it. "It'd take at least ten."

Cass laughed and shook her head again. She already knew she would lose, but… "Okay. You're on."

Sam ginned. "On three?" She nodded. "One… two… three!"

Cass launched into the fastest sprint she was capable of. At first she pulled ahead of Sam, but she doubted that would last. A glance behind her showed him catching up, working far less hard than she was to clear the distance at speed. Then he passed her, making it to the tree about five seconds ahead of her and then stood waiting for her to catch up and come to a stop.

Cass reached the tree and bent over slightly to catch her breath, glaring slightly at Sam, who was breathing harder than before but was nowhere near as winded as she was.

"You're too tall," she accused breathlessly.

Sam chuckled and shot back, "Sore loser." He began to run again at the reasonable pace from before, and Cass caught up to him with a groan. "Speed isn't even really about stride length. It's about muscle to size—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Cass glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and refrained from commenting that he very clearly had an advantage when it came to a muscle-to-size ratio as well. "It's _also_ about practice. I don't usually do sprints—I focus on distance. I imagine you've had a lot more practice, and incentive, to sprint short distances." Cass would certainly have cleared the distance to the tree much faster if, say, a _werewolf_ had been chasing her.

"Fair point."

The rest of the run went smoothly. They talked about running, then about Sioux Falls and the summer weather. Cass did not let herself be goaded into any more foot races with Sam, and the last mile was simply passed in companionable silence.

When they got back, Sam graciously allowed Cass to claim the shower first. Before she disappeared into the bathroom, Cass asked tentatively, "Same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Sure thing."

* * *

A few days later, Cass returned from her morning run to find Dean sitting on her bed with a pile of her notes in his lap. She raised an eyebrow at him, not at all concerned by the intrusion.

"A little light reading?"

Dean looked up from the notes and demanded, half-annoyed, half-amazed, "What language is this even written in?"

"Languag _es_ ," Cass corrected, emphasizing the plural. "Plus a simple cipher." She didn't specify what sort of cipher, because the code _was_ breakable if you knew how to get around it. Of course, then you'd have a mess of languages and a lot of abbreviations and shorthand that didn't make sense to anyone but her, but still. Better to be cautious.

Dean set the notes down, giving her an unimpressed look. "Starting to think you've got something to hide."

"I do," Cass agreed. "And I know that giving you bits and pieces instead of the whole story isn't exactly helping me earn your trust, but I just…" Cass sighed and tried to think of a way to explain herself.

"Look. Let's say I hadn't come up with the plan to ask Anna to save you. Let's say I just dumped all the information about angels in Sam and Bobby's lap." Cass folded her arms and eyed Dean skeptically. "Do you really think they would have carefully considered all the information and come up with a cautious, sensible plan? Or do you think Sam would have looked up the first angel-summoning ritual he came across, consequences be damned?"

"So you're saying protecting us from ourselves," Dean said flatly. "Is that it?"

Cass did not fail to notice that he'd avoided actually answering the question, and the quirk of her eyebrows communicated that. "I'm saying that if I'm going to try to change the future, I want to make sure it's changed for the better."

Dean let out a long breath through his nose, his posture relaxing. Tone lighter, he asked, "Anyone ever tell you you're a control freak?"

"Yes," she said frankly, then shrugged. "But, well." She gestured to herself and then Dean. "Kettle, pot." Dean grunted skeptically, but didn't argue the point. Curious, Cass asked, "Do you still trust me?"

Dean frowned and looked down at his hands. "I don't know." He paused for a long moment before admitting, "I think whatever angel mojo Anna gave me is messing with my head, and that I _don't_ trust."

Cass blinked. "You think the irrational trust you felt came from Anna?" It actually made a kind of sense, Anna leaving behind a sort of impression, almost a memory, along with her grace. And now that Cass thought about it, that spare grace was probably what had allowed Dean to be able to understand Castiel and Uriel's voices. She wondered just how much grace Dean actually had, and what events might change because of it.

"It's not like there's this little voice in my head saying to trust you," Dean explained, running a hand over his face in frustration. "It's just this _instinct_. It _feels_ like me, but it's not. Or, it wasn't."

He looked up at her then, eyes bright. "Am I even really me any more if I can't tell what's me and what's her?"

Cass hadn't paid enough attention to her college professor's lectures on the nature of the self to feel qualified to answer that question. Instead she offered weakly, "I think Sam and Bobby would have noticed if you'd undergone any significant personality changes." Dean did not look particularly reassured by that. "If it really is bothering you, I _think_ another angel might be able to extract whatever grace she left with you." Angels seemed to be pulling grace out of each other pretty frequently in later seasons; it couldn't be too difficult to pull it out of a human, right?

"You think?" Dean sat up straight. "You heard from your buddy Castiel since you set him on the war path?"

It was extremely odd for Cass to stand there and have Dean Winchester refer to Castiel as _her_ buddy. It was odd enough just hearing Dean say the angel's full name.

Cass shook her head. "No."

Dean furrowed his brow, assessing her. "You look worried."

Cass sighed and sat down on the other end of her bed. She _was_ worried, because, "He hasn't answered any of my prayers."

She'd taken to praying to Castiel before she went to bed each night. Not for long—just a short little message about how she hoped he was okay, and that there were other angels who stood with him. She asked him to get in touch with her, to give her a sign that he was okay after his fight with Uriel and then winging off to Heaven to maybe-probably start a civil war. But he'd never answered, and each night of silence was only making Cass's anxiety grow.

"I want to believe it's because he's busy, but… yeah. I'm worried," Cass said earnestly. "Anna would still be alive if it weren't for me. I don't even want to _think_ about Castiel…"

Dean surveyed her expression critically. "He's important, isn't he?"

Cass had to choke down a laugh at the question. Part of her found it funny that he of all people would ask, but another part of her was deeply sad. What if he and Castiel never became close, now that another angel had saved Dean from the pit? What if they never even had the opportunity?

Cass managed to force out words. "Yes. He was the one who was supposed to pull you out. He becomes your friend, your ally, your…" Cass shook her head, not able to fully describe the relationship between Castiel and the Winchesters, or Castiel and Dean in particular. "You're close."

"How close?" Dean asked suspiciously, looking a little unsettled.

"Just, close." Cass shrugged and explained with a bitter smile, "Close enough that when I first got here, I actually considered suggesting that you guys call me by my last name, because you call _him_ Cas." Her smile fell. "He's a good person. Or a good _entity_ , I guess, whatever. I just… I don't know if I could handle it if my meddling got him killed."

She swallowed hard and looked at Dean, hoping to convey just how serious this was. "And I _really_ don't like the idea of getting mixed up in a fight between Heaven and Hell without him on our side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're as nit-picky as I am, you stopped part-way through this chapter when Cass was thinking about her safety as a Prophet and said, "Wait a second! If Cass has been a Prophet of the Lord this whole time, why didn't an Archangel smite Ruby when she tried to attack Cass?"
> 
> The primary reason is Because Plot, but the in-story reason is that both Raphael and Michael were so busy scrambling to figure out who sprang Dean from Hell that they were slow to answer the 'Prophet Alarm', and that by the time they might have got off their feathery asses the danger had already passed. And Gabriel, of course, would have ignored the alarm anyway.
> 
> Once again, thank you guys so much for all your reviews. It makes me really happy to know people are enjoying my extremely self-indulgent fix-it fic. Also definitely keep asking about characters/plot points you might want to see addressed, because while the Main Plot of this thing is already set in stone, the journey to get there is not and I've already added some additional scenes/character moments because people have brought up characters I hadn't thought about when I was plotting out the story.


	10. Right and Wrong

Cass had been staring at her notes for a few hours straight, and a headache had started to build behind her eyes by the time Sam knocked lightly on the doorframe of her bedroom. Cass looked up at him curiously.

"Hey." Sam raked his eyes over all the papers spread out across her bed. "Hope I'm not interrupting."

"I could use an interruption," Cass said honestly, closing her laptop. "What's up?"

"I'm about to do a grocery run, and I thought I'd ask if you want to come," Sam explained, "There's not exactly a lot of vegetarian stuff on Bobby's shopping list, and I thought you might be getting tired of canned soup and cheese sandwiches..."

Cass smiled. She wasn't going to complain aloud about canned soup and cheese sandwiches while she was living on Bobby's hospitality, but she wasn't going to turn down an opportunity for some real food, either.

"I'd like that."

Twenty minutes later, Cass was walking through a grocery store with Sam Winchester, checking avocados for ripeness and comparing different brands of pasta. It was an incredibly normal and domestic thing to do, which just made it all the more weird, because she was doing the normal, domestic thing with _Sam Winchester_. Those sorts of thoughts were becoming less and less frequent over time, as Cass got used to thinking of Sam less as a character and more as a person, but they still happened.

She was finding it easier to separate the Sam Winchester she was getting to know from the character she'd been familiar with than it was to separate the two for Dean, or Bobby. She supposed it was because her interference hadn't changed much for either of them. Sure, Dean had spent less time in Hell, but he'd still _been_ there. The Sam Winchester adding carrots and lettuce to their shared shopping cart, meanwhile, was quite different from the character she'd known already. He'd never drank Ruby's blood, never unleashed the Apocalypse. He was missing a darkness to him, a guilt, that he otherwise would have carried around for the rest of his life. And now he never would, because of her.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"How long have you been vegetarian?" Sam asked as she piled several packages of tofu into the cart. "If you don't mind my asking."

"Let me think. I started when I was 18, so…" Cass performed some quick mental math. "Nine years."

"You're 27?" Sam looked surprised.

"Why," Cass teased, "do I look older?"

"No," Sam said quickly. "No, I just—I didn't realize you were older than me."

Cass's lips twisted with dark humor. "If it makes you feel any better, 'older' is subjective."

Sam furrowed his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What year were you born?" Cass couldn't remember off the top of her head. She knew it was in the '80s, but didn't know the year.

"'83," Sam said, still looking confused.

Cass tapped her once chest and said, "'92."

"Wait, what?" Sam stopped walking, voice rising with disbelief. "Then you should be, like, _16_."

"I was, in 2008," Cass said. "Remember when I said the show ran for like 15 seasons? This is only season 4. No, not even that—this is still the break after season 3."

"But, wait. If you were 16 in 2008, and you're 27 now, then you're from…" Sam started to do the math in his head. Cass saved him the trouble.

"2020."

"Seriously?" Cass nodded. Sam shook his head, amazed, then asked, "What's it like?"

Cass sighed, trying to think of a way to answer that question. "It's… one for the history books."

Sam furrowed his brow again. "What does _that_ mean?"

Cass glanced around to make sure none of the other shoppers were listening, then told him, "My universe might not have monsters, but it _does_ have a global pandemic. Also, high-waisted jeans have also made a huge comeback and Donald Trump is the president of the United States."

Sam opened his mouth. Hesitated. Thought for a bit. "You know? I think I prefer the monsters."

Cass huffed a laugh at that, and Sam smiled back at her, relieved that she hadn't taken offense. They finished the shopping quickly after that, and soon enough they were piling the grocery bags into the trunk of the Impala. A good third of the space was taken up with beer, and half of the remaining space was taken up with canned goods, shelf-stable foods, and meats both fresh and frozen, but Cass had fresh vegetables and vegetarian proteins for the first time in weeks, so she was content.

Or at least, she was, until she turned to take one of the last bags from the cart and saw Uriel walking slowly towards them across the parking lot.

Cass froze. The bag she'd been picking up fell, sending oranges rolling across the asphalt.

"Woah." Sam looked at the oranges, then to Cass, concerned. "You okay?"

Cass didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She was too shocked, and afraid, and overall, _confused_. Uriel shouldn't be here. There was no _reason_ for him to be here. He'd been exposed. He should be in Hell. Had he changed his mind about hurting her? Had he decided that, if he was going to rebel against Heaven and work for Lucifer, that murdering a Prophet wasn't forbidden, after all? Or was he just willing to risk the wrath of the Archangels for revenge?

When Cass didn't speak, Sam followed her gaze. He stiffened.

"Uriel," he said, darkly. "What are you doing here?"

The angel was only a dozen feet away now. He didn't have a weapon drawn, but that didn't mean he was unarmed. Uriel answered Sam evenly. "Righting that which has gone wrong."

In one motion, Sam stepped in front of Cass and pulled a wicked-looking knife out of his jacket. He held the blade in a defensive stance and said firmly, "Get back."

Cass ought to be doing something. She ought to be drawing a sigil, or praying, or _something_ aside from standing like a deer in headlights, but she didn't have a knife on her to draw blood for a sigil, and she couldn't think.

Uriel smiled his unkind smile. Six feet away, now. "I'm not here for the Prophet."

Cass didn't like the way he said that. She didn't like the way he said that _at all_. It gave her the push she needed to give up her imitation of a statue, and she quickly pulled Sam behind her by his shirt, maneuvering herself between him and Uriel and doing her best not to cut her face open on the knife Sam was still brandishing.

"Cass?" She didn't know if Sam was trying to ask her what she was doing, or what Uriel was doing, or both. She didn't really have any answers for him either way. But she did know one thing, from Uriel's words and the way his dark eyes glittered, not at her, but at Sam.

"He can't touch me, remember?" She said, not turning away from Uriel for a second. She was still pressing Sam backwards, trying to encourage him to back up. "He's not allowed. An Archangel would kill him if he tried. That means he's here for _you_."

Uriel looked amused. He turned his dark gaze to her, away from Sam, and said with genuine surprise and not a little condescension, "You really think you can stop me?"

No. No, she didn't. She opened her mouth to tell Sam to get in the car and just _drive,_ but it wasn't like Uriel couldn't follow him wherever he went.

"Castiel? A little help?" Cass said, voice high with panic. He hadn't responded to her prayers, but surely if he could hear her now, he would come, right? "Castiel! Oh, fuck it—Michael! Raphael! Is _anybody_ listening?"

Uriel smiled his cold, devil's smile again. "Castiel is busy. And the Archangels won't come. They know I won't harm you." The smile dropped. "Now. Step aside."

Uriel was upon her now, close enough to touch. Sam had retreated further back, but Cass couldn't turn to glance at him, couldn't look away from Uriel. She swallowed hard.

"No."

Uriel did not even blink. He raised a hand to her face, gentle but not kind. "Then _sleep_."

* * *

People were talking to her. She knew they were. She could see their lips moving, could see the concern on their faces, but she couldn't hear them. Not really. She couldn't hear the doctors, or the beeps of medical equipment. She hadn't been able to hear the sirens, either, or the EMTs who'd loaded her and Sam into the ambulance. To Cass, it was all just white noise.

She hadn't heard anything with any clarity since she'd pressed her fingers to Sam's neck and felt no pulse. Since she'd desperately pressed her ear to his chest and heard nothing.

No pulse. No heartbeat.

"I don't understand."

Cass couldn't hear her own voice, so she wasn't sure if she was saying it out loud, or only in her mind. It was the only thought in her head, repeating over and over. She didn't understand why Sam was… was…

"I don't understand."

And then, abruptly, the fog in her mind lifted as she was slammed back against a wall.

"Dean!" That was Bobby's voice, the first sound to cut through the haze. But it was Dean who was holding her against the wall, hands squeezing her shoulders tightly as he shook her. His eyes were livid and bright.

"What the hell happened?" Dean roared at her. "Why is my brother in the _morgue_?"

Cass shuddered. Tears overflowed from her eyes, and she shut them, not able to meet Dean's accusing stare.

"Dean, lay off her!" Bobby pulled Dean away from her, leaving Cass leaning on the wall for support as she sobbed. "The doctors said she's in shock!"

"I don't care about her _feelings_ , Bobby! My brother is _dead_!"

Cass sobbed harder, wrapping her arms around herself. With effort, she opened her eyes and looked back at Dean, and then to Bobby. "I don't kn-know," she said, working hard to speak around ragged breaths. "I don't understan-nd."

"What's there to understand?" Dean stepped forward again, eyes wild. Bobby's hand gripping his arm held him back from manhandling her any further, though he, too, was looking at Cass with a look that demanded answers. "My brother just dropped dead without a scratch on him. You were there! What the hell happened? What did you _do_?!"

"Ur…" Cass shook her head bitterly and forced herself to take deep breaths. " _Uriel_. He c-came for Sam. I don't know _why_. I tried c-calling—for angels. For _anyone_. But no one _came_." Cass swallowed hard, the movement painful. "I tried… I _tried…_ but he just put me to _sleep_ , and I-I couldn't give him enough time to f… to finish the banishing sigil."

Cass had looked up from Sam's still body when she noticed his fingers were bloody to find the angel-banishing sigil half-finished on the driver's side door, the dark smears barely visible against the Impala's black paint. If she hadn't been so weak, if she hadn't hesitated, if she'd kept her head and thought of something to distract Uriel for just a few seconds longer, then Sam could have finished it.

He could have lived.

"Uriel?" Dean repeated. "The asshole angel, the one working for Lucifer?"

Cass nodded shakily. Bobby frowned. "Why would he kill Sam?"

Cass shook her head slowly. "I don't _know_. Sam is supposed to break the last seal. He's supposed to be Lucifer's vessel. It didn't make any _sense_ for Uriel to do this. I don't—" Cass scrubbed at her tear-streaked face even as two more tears fell. "I don't _understand_."

"I do."

The humans in the room all jumped at Castiel's sudden appearance in the hospital room, but Dean recovered almost immediately.

" _You_." He advanced on Castiel without fear, looming over the angel. "You know why your angel friend _killed my brother?_ "

"Uriel is no longer a friend," Castiel informed him gravely. "And he has taken Sam to Hell in the hopes that you will come for him, and break the first seal."

Dean's face went pale. " _What_?"

"Uriel and the others, they are still trying to break the first seal and set the Apocalypse in motion," Castiel explained. "They knew they could not simply drag you back to Hell and expect you to shed blood, knowing what you know now. They are counting on you coming to Hell to rescue your brother, and shedding blood in the process."

Castiel turned to Cass then, his blue eyes remorseful. "I heard your prayers. I'm sorry that I could not answer. I was… delayed."

Dean made a disbelieving noise. "That's _convenient_."

Cass looked at Castiel, taking in the disheveled angle of his trench coat and the bags beneath his eyes. She recalled that Uriel had said that Castiel was _busy_ , and though she couldn't see any blood on him, she was quite certain when she said softly, "They hurt you."

Castiel hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. I regret to say that I may not have escaped if they had not let me go, to serve as messenger."

Cass reeled for a moment, trying to absorb the fact that her meddling with the timeline really had nearly gotten Castiel killed. She felt nauseous at the very thought. She'd already gotten Anna killed, and now Sam, too. Who would be next?

"Alright," Dean said, his tone business-like. "Let's go."

Castiel furrowed his brow at him. "Go?"

"To get my brother back," Dean said impatiently. "Let's go."

"I can't let you do that." Castiel looked genuinely confused by Dean's demand. "Have you forgotten that breaking the first seal is the first step to unleashing the Apocalypse?"

"Does it look like I care?" Cass could confirm that it did not. He looked ready to march down to Hell himself, whether Castiel was with him or not. "I'll deal with the Apocalypse. Hell, I'll deal with Lucifer himself if I have to. But I'm not gonna let my brother rot in Hell, not 'cause of me."

"There may be another way," said Castiel slowly, carefully. "To retrieve Sam, without breaking the seal."

Dean waited a beat. When Castiel did not immediately continue, he said, "Well? Spit it out."

Castiel's brow furrowed in confusion again. Cass would have found that funny if she didn't feel so hollow inside. In a ragged voice, she told the angel, "He means 'explain.'"

Castiel blinked, then nodded and obeyed. To Dean, he said, "The rebel angels and the legions of Hell will not make the same mistake they made with you. Anna had the element of surprise, but this time they will be ready. Your brother will be heavily guarded." He turned to direct his next words to Cass. "There is no way to succeed through stealth. And the few angels I've found who are truly loyal to humanity are not enough to wage a successful assault."

"I'm not hearing a solution, here," said Dean impatiently.

"My _solution_ is to send someone no angel or demon would dare to touch." He was still looking at Cass, and she had an awful feeling she knew exactly why.

"Me," she breathed. "You want _me_ to go."

"Angels are not permitted to bring you harm," Castiel reasoned, speaking quickly. "And should a demon try to do so, an Archangel's wrath would fall upon them. Their defenses could not harm you."

"That didn't stop Uriel from knocking her out," Dean said gruffly. "How do we know they won't just put her to sleep again?"

"Or lock her up in a nice, safe dungeon?" Bobby added. Cass wrapped her arms tighter around herself, trying not to betray just how deeply that thought terrified her. Castiel was undeterred.

"They would have to catch her, first."

"Catch me?" Cass repeated, confused. Castiel looked back at her with his very blue eyes, not blinking. Cass stiffened. "You're talking about possessing me. Aren't you?"

Castiel inclined his head. "I cannot lay siege to Hell on my own. You may be invulnerable to harm, but you are still human. You are not fast enough or strong enough to resist capture. Together, and _only_ together, we might free Sam without breaking the first seal."

"You wanna possess somebody? Possess me," Dean said firmly, stepping forward. "They're not supposed to hurt me, either, right? I thought I'm supposed to be a vessel."

"There is nothing stopping them from killing you now and resurrecting you when it is convenient," said Castiel bluntly. "More importantly, I would not risk your presence in Hell. Even if I were to possess you, your hands shedding blood may still be enough to break the first seal."

"The first seal breaks when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell," Cass recited, then sighed shakily. "No matter how loosely you interpret it, there's no way I could be mistaken for a righteous _man_."

Castiel nodded. "If you truly wish to save Sam, and prevent the first seal from breaking, this is the only way."

She didn't want to go to Hell. She didn't want to let Castiel possess her, either, not when she remembered how Jimmy Novak had described the experience: like being chained to a comet. She didn't know if she had the mental fortitude to put up with an experience like that, and now Castiel was asking to take control of her body so he could lay siege to _Hell_. The very idea of it terrified her.

But Sam was _dead_. Dead when he shouldn't be. Dead because of her, and the rippling changes she'd made to the timeline. She shouldn't even be here, and Sam _should_ be here. Sam, who'd gone on a run with her just this morning, who had taken her grocery shopping, and made her laugh, and stepped in front of Uriel to defend her without hesitation. Cass couldn't forget the unnatural stillness of his face, the blankness in his pale eyes, the feel of his rapidly cooling skin when she pressed her fingers desperately to his throat and felt nothing.

It wasn't right.

"Okay," she croaked, looking into Castiel's too-blue eyes and nodding. "I'll do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone complains about cliffhangers, just know that I was initially going to put the first half of this chapter at the end of the previous chapter and just leave Cass knocked out in a parking lot for a week before updating again ;) Thanks for all your reviews, everyone! Next time we see… Cass squared? Cas2? Cass-tiel? Casss?


	11. Hell and Back

Being possessed by an angel hurt.

'Like being chained to a comet' was an apt description. For Cass, the flood of Castiel's blue-hot grace into her body was like looking into the sun. It burned, and blinded her, and made her feel raw and blistered not in her body, but in her soul. She wanted to close her eyes, to curl into a protective little ball and shut it all out. She might even have been able to—in her head, she could feel Castiel's presence gently ushering her into a corner of her own mind, where she would not have to observe what was about to happen and where the scorching heat of Castiel's grace would not be so utterly devastating.

But somehow, that terrified her even more. To be possessed by an angel was a terrible thing, but to be isolated in a corner of her own mind while it happened, not knowing what was happening or if Castiel succeeded, was worse. So Cass ignored Castiel's gentle nudges and planted herself at the forefront of her mind, not fighting for control, but insisting on remaining awake, present, and watching. Castiel hesitated, but did not fight her. Slowly, reluctantly, Cass sensed him shifting, rearranging his occupation of her vessel so that she was in something like a passenger seat—able to observe the goings-on outside through her own eyes, but unable to control the direction of her own body.

The return of her vision was disorienting. Dean and Bobby and the hospital room were already gone, and everything around her was a whirl of color. Cass guessed that this must be what flying was like, but it didn't feel at all like she'd thought it would be. It didn't feel like _flying_ at all. It was more like she was a central, fixed point in the universe, and space and matter were rushing past and reshaping all around her. She was all at once moving impossibly fast and standing utterly still, and if Cass had still been the one in charge of her own bodily functions, she would have crumpled to the ground and vomited from the overwhelming experience.

And then, abruptly, the motion ceased, and Cass was standing in a world of shadow and fire. The sheer heat of the place made Castiel's grace feel like pleasant afternoon sunshine. If her body wasn't protected by Castiel's powers, Cass was sure she would have burned to a crisp as soon as she set foot in the place. But she was, and she didn't.

Together they stood before a massive gate. What it was made of, Cass could not say. In one glance it might have been cast iron, but at second glance she thought that it looked more like bone—blackened, _human_ bone. But her eyes, directed as they were by Castiel, did not linger long on the gate itself. Instead they fell on the dozen figures standing before it.

They were all shaped like people, but they were none of them human. More than half of them were demons, their warped, putrid souls twisting around them wildly. The remainder were angels, bright to Castiel's eyes, with light impressions of their true forms overlapping their human shapes. They were tall, many-eyed, many-limbed things composed of starlight and grace, and if Cass was in charge of her own body she would have screamed at the sight of it because it was too much too look at, more than her human mind had ever been designed to comprehend—

But she was not in charge of her own body. Castiel strode forward on Cass's feet, strong and purposeful and unphased by the difference in their numbers.

"Castiel," said one of the angels. It had not advanced to meet them. It seemed frozen, uncertain and staring. "Possessing a prophet? Is there no blasphemy you won't sink to?"

"You have no right to speak of blasphemy," said Castiel through Cass's lips. Their voice was lower, colder, more rough than it had ever been in her life. Castiel flicked their wrist, and suddenly there was cool metal in their hand, and sorrow and anger in their heart. The emotions came from Castiel, not Cass, borne from the knowledge that these angels, his brothers, were now his enemies, and that he was prepared to kill them if he had to. But the sorrow was shared in its entirety, in the same way that Cass's vessel was shared in its entirety.

They said, "Let me pass."

The angels did not move at first, instead trading looks with each other. Then, in unison, they backed away from the gate, standing aside to clear the way. The demons, left without backup and faced with an avenging angel, looked much less confident. Half of them scattered, following the angels' example, but a few remained, sneering at Cass and Castiel with their corrupted faces and preparing for a fight.

Castiel moved them forward, unconcerned by the presence of the demons. The closer they came to the demons, the brighter the world seemed to get. There was a humming in the air like electricity, a smell like ozone overwhelming the smell of sulfur.

From the side of the gate, one of the rebel angels called out sharply, "Stay back, filth! Do not touch her—do you want to bring Michael down on our heads?"

The demons did not have time to heed the angel's words. Castiel surged forward, planting their angel blade between one demon's ribs, then another, then another. Each of them died with a flare of red light and then disintegrated into something less than dust. The last demon Castiel seized by the throat, but did not stab, instead planting the shining angel blade against its tortured, pitch-black soul and demanding, "Where is Sam Winchester?"

The demon raised its twisted, rotten arm and pointed a shaking finger past the gate and toward the left. The angel blade slid home, and then Castiel was striding forward through the still-dissipating mist of its body.

They descended into Hell. Before them, demons shrank back from the brilliance of Castiel's grace. Those who did not, or did not retreat quickly enough, were treated to the same interrogation that the demon at the gate had received, and met the same fate. They moved quickly through the winding labyrinth of flesh and fire and bone, and then, at last, they found Sam.

His soul was behind another gate of blackened bone, chained to a wall and looking defeated, but unharmed. At the grunts and dying flashes of his demon guards, Sam looked up from staring at the floor, expression melting rapidly from stubborn rebellion to wide-eyed disbelief.

" _Cass_?"

"Right on two counts," Cass thought, and was surprised to hear the words emerging from her mouth in her own voice, her lips twisted in a wry smile. But then her lips pulled downward and Castiel said intently, "We have to go."

Castiel tore apart the chains around Sam's wrists as if they were made of tissue paper, and then he grabbed hold of Sam's arm. Cass could feel his wings spread in anticipation of flight and for a moment marveled at the disorienting feeling of using a limb that she did not truly possess. She braced herself for the dizzying rush of flight, but it did not come. Instead, there was a solid kick to her side that sent her rolling across the super-heated floor.

It was Uriel. Again. Of course.

"Very clever, Castiel," he said, advancing slowly with an angel blade in his hand. "Using the prophet as a human shield. Vulgar, but clever." He shook his head. "I told them we should have killed you, and picked a different messenger."

"You are already a stain on the name of Heaven," Castiel ground out. "Attack the prophet again and the archangels will grant you no mercy."

Uriel did not blink. "I'll risk it."

Uriel surged forward, blade flashing. Castiel thrust Cass's arm up into an immediate parry, the blade clashing. Even though she was awake and aware, Cass could hardly follow the fight, the quickness of Uriel's movements and Castiel's counter-attacks throwing her off. Castiel and Uriel were locked in a lightning-fast, deadly whirlwind, blades crashing and clattering against each other.

Almost immediately, the whole world began to shake. When the blades first touched it was little more than a rumble, but as time went on the walls around them shook more and more, and Cass knew from Castiel's own certainty that this was the approach of either Michael or Raphael, sensing the imminent danger to the prophet. Uriel knew it, too, and grew more desperate. The desperation gave him strength and speed, and with a quick swipe, he delivered a deep slash to Cass's right arm. Castiel's angel blade went flying and Cass cried out as they were kicked in the chest and sent skidding along the ground.

Cass hissed, and she and Castiel scrambled up onto their knees and Uriel advanced, angel blade poised with deadly purpose. The room was positively vibrating now, so fierce was the shaking. The archangel must be very close, now. But was he close _enough_?

Castiel raised their head and said lowly, "They will kill you for this, Uriel."

Uriel hefted the blade and said simply, "Then I will have earned a worthy death."

He drew his arm back. It was only because Castiel was still controlling her body that Cass saw what happened next. While she wanted to close her eyes, to flinch away and not watch the coming blow, Castiel was facing Uriel head-on, defiant to the end. Because of this, Castiel and Cass both saw the bloody glint of silvery metal as Sam thrust Castiel's fallen angel blade through Uriel's ribs.

Castiel's horror was immediate.

"No!" Castiel scrambled up and took hold of Uriel's shoulders. Uriel, meanwhile, was smiling bitterly, even as the light left his eyes.

"You've failed, Castiel," Uriel said darkly, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. "The seal is broken." And then the light left his eyes, and Uriel slumped, dead weight in Cass's arms.

Cass reeled, paralyzed by horrified disbelief. Castiel stepped back and let the body drop, gritting their teeth. He seized Sam's arm roughly, spread his wings, and flew.

* * *

Bobby, Dean, and Jimmy Novak all jumped when Cass and Castiel appeared over Sam's body where it had been laid out in Bobby's backyard. Castiel ignored them, pressing Sam's soul into his body and resuscitating him with the tiniest jolt his grace, breathing life back into the body and reestablishing the connection between flesh and soul.

Sam's green eyes shot open immediately and he sat up, gasping for breath. Cass's own deep relief at seeing him alive again mixed and blended with Castiel's overwhelming disappointment over what it cost.

"Sam!" Dean surged forward to check on his brother, to reassure himself that he really was back. Cass would have stepped back to give them some room, but Castiel had yet to grasp the intricacies of personal space and so remained rooted to the spot. Dean, upon confirming that Sam really was alive and breathing again, caught sight of the blood staining Cass's right sleeve. "Are you alright?"

Castiel did not answer the question. Instead he said bitterly, "We failed. The first seal is broken."

"What?" Dean stepped back, frowning at them. "How? I thought Cass couldn't break it? I thought that was the whole _point_."

"I broke it," Sam said roughly, shame-faced. "I shed Uriel's blood—" He turned to Cass then, his eyes full of frustrated confusion. "But how is that even possible? I'm not… _righteous_."

"You took up arms to defend your comrade, who also happens to be a Prophet of the Lord," Castiel explained flatly. "You were righteous enough."

Dean grimaced, deciding to ignore the impending apocalypse for a moment as he said, "Okay, it is _seriously_ weird for you to be in her body." He pointed over his shoulder toward the waiting, skittish-looking Jimmy Novak. "Go back to your own vessel."

Castiel furrowed Cass's brow, considering. "I can guard the prophet more easily from within," he said to Dean, and then, to Jimmy Novak, "I know you wished to return to your family."

"I did," said Jimmy immediately. "I _do_." He swallowed hard and shook his head. "But not if they're still in danger. I'd rather they lived without me, than died with me."

Cass, for her part, was _not_ thrilled at the idea of Castiel staying in her body for an extended amount of time. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience, and one she wasn't keen to prolong any longer than necessary. She could feel Castiel's hesitance, less at leaving her undefended than at giving up the strategic advantage of a vessel that no angel would dare to harm.

 _You can borrow my body again if you need to_ , Cass promised him, _But_ only _if you need to._

Castiel nodded at that, accepting both the invitation and her restrictions. To Jimmy he said, "Very well."

And then, with a flash of light, Castiel was gone from Cass's mind. Cass swayed, and was glad she was kneeling on the ground next to Sam instead of standing, because she might have fallen otherwise. The sudden lack of heat made her feel suddenly cold, and she shivered even in the summer sun.

"Cass?" Sam reached out to steady her, taking care to touch only her left shoulder and not disturb her bloody right arm. "Are you okay?"

Cass took a moment to stare at Sam's concerned face, taking it all in. The light in his green eyes. The slightly disheveled brown hair. The look of sincere protective concern, tinged by guilt.

 _Alive_.

The first seal had broken, and they would have to deal with that, but Sam was alive, at least. And Cass wouldn't have it the other way around.

"I'm okay." She pulled away from Sam, pushed herself to her feet, and said to the group at large, "The next seal will be the Rising of the Witnesses." She directed her next words to Bobby in particular. "I've got the outline of the spell to stop it, but I imagine you know it better than I do. You'll want to call every hunter you know and tell them the instructions, though. I don't know if it needs to be performed by everyone who experiences it, or if one person doing the spell will end the seal entirely, but we should prepare for the worst."

She was rambling, a little, but talking about what she knew made her feel better, more in control in the face of the knowledge that the first seal had broken, sooner than they had hoped, and despite everything they'd done to try to stop it.

"What's the Rising of the Witnesses?" asked Dean as he heaved Sam to his feet and gave his younger brother a solid pat on the back.

"It's a seal," Cass explained. "The Witnesses are the spirits of those who have died unnatural deaths, come to take revenge on those who failed to save them."

Dean's face darkened. "So it's basically designed to kill hunters."

Castiel, back in the dark-haired, trench-coated vessel of Jimmy Novak, nodded. "It's a good strategy," he said with grudging admiration. "Lilith will try to take out any force which could stop her from breaking the seals."

"I'll get dialin'." Bobby made a bee-line toward the house and disappeared through the back door.

Dean turned to look between Cass and Castiel. "So it's really happening? The Apocalypse."

"The first seal is broken," Castiel confirmed darkly. "It's happening."

"Okay," said Dean, his voice level, clearly trying to stay in control of the situation. "Okay. How long do we have until all the other seals are broken?"

Cass bit her lip. "I'm not sure. Last time it took three, four months? But now, I suspect it'll go quicker. They'll want to get it over with as soon as they can, and with the rebel angels already exposed, they won't be shy about helping to break the seals."

"Then we've got to find Lilith," Dean said resolutely. "Kill her before she can break the rest of the seals."

"Or cure her," Cass reminded him. Dean waved a careless hand.

"Whatever," he said. "We've just gotta stop her."

"We'll have to find her, first," Sam reminded him glumly. "None of our tracking spells have worked, remember?"

Dean turned to Castiel expectantly. "What about you? Can't you find her with your angel powers, or something?"

"My 'angel powers' cannot locate Lilith," Castiel said carefully. "There are ways of hiding even from an angel's sight, as you know." His eyes flicked toward Bobby's house, which even now was warded against his presence. "And with rebel angels on her side, she will be able to elude us even more effectively."

"Great," said Dean, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "Just great. How the hell are we supposed to find her, then?"

Cass grimaced. "I might have an idea… but you're probably not going to like it."

Dean turned to look at her warily. "Alright. What is it?"

"There's a demon who might be able to help us."

"A demon," Dean repeated, disbelieving. "You've got to be kidding me." Cass shook her head.

"Who?" asked Sam, eyebrows raised. "Ruby?"

" _No_ ," Cass said forcefully. "No. Definitely still kill Ruby if she shows up again. No, you haven't met this demon yet. He becomes something of an off-and-on enemy-slash-ally to you guys, the way I've seen it. Don't get me wrong, he's not _good_ —but sometimes his ambitions align with yours, and you work towards the same goals until one side or the other decides it's time to stab their partner in the back."

"You're not really selling this. You know that, right?" said Dean.

"Yeah, well, I don't love the idea of contacting him, either" Cass said, frowning. "He's useful, but he's also cunning, and probably the most intelligent demon I've seen. It makes him dangerous. But I _think_ he would be willing to help us, because he's smart enough to know that he's on the hit list if the Apocalypse really goes down, no matter who wins."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam. "The demons work for Lucifer, don't they?"

"Yes, they do. Or at least, most of them do," Cass said. "But Lucifer hates humans. And since demons are nothing more than twisted, warped human souls, he can't totally eliminate humanity unless he destroys all the demons, too."

"But this guy, this _demon_ ," Dean said, "he helped us stop the Apocalypse? Before?"

"Yes. He gave you the Colt back, plus more ammunition—before you all learned the hard way that the Colt can't kill an Archangel," Cass explained. "And then, once you realized you couldn't kill Lucifer, he helped you put him back in the cage."

"I don't like it," Dean said stubbornly. "Demons are demons. You said yourself that this guy—"

"Crowley."

" _Crowley_ , is dangerous. You even said he stabs us in the back!"

"I don't like it, either," Cass said sincerely. "But if we can't find a way to track down Lilith ourselves, it might be our only option to find her before all the other seals break."

"I have not fallen so far that I am willing to consort with demons," said Castiel gravely.

Dean turned to him and said emphatically, " _Thank_ you!"

Cass shook her head. "Then I really do hope you can find another way in time."

She turned and re-entered the house, heading upstairs to review her notes again. Maybe, if she stared at them long enough, something would come to her. Some idea that hadn't occurred to her yet, or some solution Castiel and the others would find marginally more palatable than 'consorting with demons'. Witches? Gabriel?

She'd barely spread her notes out across the bed before there was a knock on her bedroom door. The noise made her jump—she was pretty sure that it had taken a few days after the first seal broke before the rising of the witnesses, but with the ever-changing timeline, she couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen sooner. But it wasn't a vengeful ghost at the door.

"Can I come in?" asked Sam through the door.

Cass shut her laptop, but left her notes out. The papers were still written in code, so Sam wouldn't be able to read them even if he wanted to. "Yeah, sure."

Sam cracked open the door. He was holding a small first-aid kit. "I wanted to take a look at your arm."

"What?" Cass blinked, remembering, and looked down at her right sleeve, dark with dried blood. She prodded it without fear—it didn't hurt at all. "It's fine. Castiel healed it already." He must have done so before he even left her body. She hadn't even noticed it happening.

Sam was still eyeing the bloodied sleeve warily when she looked back at him, and then he turned the worried green eyes to her face. "Please?"

She hated that the puppy-dog expression of his was beginning to work on her. She sighed and shuffled her papers out of the way so he could sit next to her on the bed, then rolled up the bloodied sleeve. Her arm wasn't pretty, smeared as it was with dark dried blood, but as Sam cleaned it with a sterile wipe, the skin beneath was whole and unblemished.

"See?" Cass said gently. "Not even a scratch."

Sam didn't look at her. His head was still bowed over her arm, slowly clearing away the last of the blood. When there was no more blood, Sam crumpled the wipe in his hand. "I'm sorry."

Cass frowned at the top of Sam's head. She was tempted to tell him that he was violating their 'no thank yous or apologies' agreement, but this didn't seem like the right time. His shoulders were hunched, his tone filled with quite a bit more self-loathing than was warranted over the arm injury. Which meant, of course, that he wasn't apologizing about her arm, and he believed he'd really, truly fucked up.

"It's not your fault, Sam."

Sam's head jerked up, pale eyes burning with righteous fire. "I broke the seal!"

"None of us could have predicted it breaking like that," Cass said fervently. "We did everything we could." Sam was looking away, his jaw working stubbornly, and Cass nudged his knee to get him to look at her again. "And for what it's worth, I'm _glad_ you didn't let Uriel stab me. You saved my _life_ , Sam. And Castiel's, too."

Sam huffed doubtfully. "He didn't seem that grateful about it."

"He's… going through a lot of stuff right now," Cass said, wincing. Then she forced herself to rally and finish delivering her pep talk. "The first seal is broken, but we all survived to fight another day. That's not nothing."

"But what if we're fighting a losing battle?" Sam's eyes were bright and worried. "What if everything you've seen is just fate? What if this turns out like all those Greek prophecies from myths, where you can't escape what's supposed to happen no matter what you do? Where everything you do to try to change things just makes the prophecy happen?"

"I don't believe that," Cass said flatly. She had never even considered it, and she refused to consider it now. She couldn't. It was too terrifying a possibility to entertain for even a moment. She _had_ to believe that things could change. "And you shouldn't, either. You and Dean already defied fate once in the version of events I saw. I don't see any reason you can't do it again."

Sam didn't look convinced. He'd hunched over again and was now staring at his hands, brooding. Cass sighed.

"Tell me something, Sam." Reluctantly, Sam looked up at her through the curtain of his hair. "If you could go back in time, and you knew killing Uriel would break the seal, would you still do it?"

It was not the first question like this she'd ever asked him, and like before, it was a question she already knew the answer to. Sam knew it, too, his lips twisting briefly into a wry, 'you-got-me' expression.

"Yeah. I would." His eyes flicked to his hands, now clenched into fists, and then back to her face. "I swore I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

"Then there's no sense regretting it, is there?" she asked simply. "We just have to focus on what we _can_ do."

"Finding Lilith," Sam completed the thought.

"Finding Lilith."

Down the hall a loud noise echoed off the walls, and Cass flinched before processing that the noise was just Bobby sneezing. Cass sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, then pushed herself up from the bed and crossed the room to the closet, where she began to rummage.

"Uh. Cass?" Sam was still sitting on the bed, eyes wide at her sudden departure following their little heart-to-heart. "You okay?"

Cass stood and kicked the door to the closet gently shut behind her. In her arms she held a large box of salt and a roll of clear packing tape.

"Honestly? No. I don't know exactly when the next seal is going to break, but I'm going to be jumping at noises until it's done." She stopped at the edge of the bed, eyeing the layout of the room. "Help me move the bed away from the wall, would you?"

Sam obeyed, though he still looked confused. He watched curiously as, once the bed was away from the wall, Cass sprinkled a thick line of salt in a wide circle around the bed and began yanking off strips of tape to secure the stuff down.

"You're… taping down salt?"

"I don't want it to get blown away," Cass said gravely, pressing down a piece of tape carefully to ensure the seal was secure before moving on to the next section. "These aren't ordinary ghosts we're talking about, here. They're…" Cass hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "Evil murder ghosts of the Apocalypse."

"Most of the ghosts we deal with are 'murder ghosts'," Sam pointed out sensibly.

Cass huffed and glared at him from her spot on the floor. "Yeah, well, I've never even _seen_ a ghost, and I _really_ don't want to get killed by one. I'm not gonna put salt around my bed just for them to blow it all away with their spooky ghost wind."

"Spooky ghost wind," Sam repeated. The corners of his lips were twitching.

"If you're going to make fun of me, you can just leave," Cass griped, ripping off more tape. "We'll see who's laughing when my ring of salt is safe and sound, and yours is blown out the window."

"Sorry," Sam said, though he'd stopped trying to hide the expression and was now smiling openly. Still, he knelt down on the ground and held out a hand. "Here. Let me help."

Cass eyed him suspiciously, but handed him a few strips of tape anyway. He took them and began fastidiously securing the salt line.

"It's just…" Sam paused, seeming to think about how he wanted to phrase his next thought. "You know so much about this stuff. It's easy to forget you're not actually a hunter."

"I've never been a fighter," Cass said, matter-of-fact. "I don't have the heart for it. It's why I didn't try to become a field agent with the FBI—I didn't want to have to serve warrants. I hated the thought that I might have to shoot somebody."

"If it makes you feel any better, the ghosts are already dead." Cass raised her head to shoot him a look that conveyed that that did not, in fact, make her feel any better. Sam's smile widened at the withering look and he said, "Besides. You had enough heart to bust me out of Hell."

"That wasn't me." She yanked off another strip of tape with force. "It was Castiel."

"You stood up to Uriel without him," Sam countered.

"Uriel wasn't allowed to hurt me," Cass said, then looked down at the dark blood stain on her shirtsleeve. "Though I suppose he didn't let that stop him."

"You didn't know that before," Sam pressed. "When they first arrived. You said it yourself, the angels would've tortured you for what you're doing, if they could. But you did it anyway."

Cass sighed and looked up, frowning. "What are you trying to say, Sam?"

"I'm just saying…" Sam shook his head. "You've got more heart than you think."

He gestured for some more tape, and Cass handed it to him silently. She was still mulling over his words as they slowly rounded the circle towards each other. His response hadn't clarified much. More heart than she thought? What was that even supposed to mean? Was he trying to say that she should be more courageous? Or that she already was, and wasn't giving herself enough credit?

She decided it didn't really matter, and decided to chalk it up to whatever mix of guilt and gratitude Sam was currently feeling about breaking the first seal and being pulled out of Hell. Cass laid down the final piece of tape, ensuring the salt line couldn't be disturbed with anything less than deliberate tampering, and sat back, feeling marginally more in control. Ghosts might be coming, but at least they wouldn't be able to murder her in her sleep.

"Anywhere else you wanna lay down a permanent circle?"

Cass squinted at Sam suspiciously, trying to tell if he was being serious. "Are you just humoring me right now?"

"No." He said it too quickly for Cass to believe him, and he quickly added, "Really. I mean, this would never work on a regular hunt—it'd take too much time to tape down the salt—but for our situation now, it's actually not a bad idea."

Cass decided he looked earnest enough. And besides, "We can put one around the fireplace downstairs. We'll need it for the spell to banish the Witnesses."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the immortal words of Nondenominational Mr. Winter, Merry Happy!


	12. A Moment

"Is there any coffee left?"

"What?" Sam looked up from the book he'd been reading and stared at her. He checked his watch, then said, "Cass, it's five in the afternoon."

"So that'd be a 'no,' then." Cass dropped her laptop on the coffee table in the library as she crossed to the kitchen, intending to make a fresh pot. Bobby and Dean watched her go with raised eyebrows and amusement, respectively. Sam stood up and followed after her, eyes wide. He looked like he was seriously considering trying to stop her from consuming any more coffee, but Cass shot him a dark look and he backed down, frowning deeply.

"Did you even sleep last night?"

Cass had hardly left her room since she and Sam had finished the salt lines the previous day. She'd selected a cast iron fire poker to carry around with her just in case, but even with that and the security of her salt line, she still jumped at every noise. Sleep was almost impossible, and she'd given up on it after a few fitful hours. She'd instead focused on copying down everything that would be of value to Bobby and the boys in trying to find Lilith, sorting through information to determine what might be of use and what might be too dangerous to divulge.

"I got a few hours," Cass said dismissively. She hit 'start' on the coffee pot and perched on the arm of the couch while the coffee percolated. "You heard from any other hunters yet, Bobby?"

"Not yet." Cass sighed and rubbed her temples. "You're really worried about this." His tone was lightly questioning.

"I know you're all used to this," she said, gesturing vaguely to the piles of lore books surrounding them, "but it's actually totally normal to be afraid of ghosts."

"Come on, ghosts are easy," Dean said lightly. "Hold 'em off with salt and iron, salt and burn the bones. A kid can do it."

Cass couldn't resist a quick glance at Sam at that last comment, and was able to catch his slight wince before he schooled his expression. Cass figured that this was Dean's best attempt at being reassuring, but the thought of Sam and Dean facing down vengeful spirits before they could vote didn't really make her feel any better. But it wouldn't be wise to say so.

"Yeah, well, I'm still adjusting to the idea of ghosts existing at all." Cass shook her head and added, "And these aren't ordinary ghosts. There won't be any bones to burn."

Dean shrugged carelessly. "We got a spell, don't we?"

"What's different about the Witnesses, anyway?" Sam asked, looking from Cass to Bobby. "You said they're more powerful than regular ghosts, but they're still vulnerable to salt and iron, right?"

"Same rules apply," Bobby confirmed. "But they're ghosts who died unnatural deaths, forced to rise against their will by a powerful spell. They won't just be extra powerful—they'll be extra vengeful, too."

"The most dangerous thing," Cass said slowly, "is that they'll be people you knew. People you failed to save. Their anger is personal." She locked eyes with Sam and finished seriously, "And you might be tempted to apologize, or to reason with them, but you can't."

Sam furrowed his brow and drew breath, but before he could speak, one of the phones in the kitchen rang. Cass flinched at the sound, fingers tightening on her fire poker. Bobby rose to answer the phone, and Cass and the boys were quiet as they listened intently to Bobby's end of the conversation.

"Yeah?" A short pause. "You alright?" An even shorter pause. "And the ritual worked?" A much longer pause, and when Bobby spoke again it was in a rushed, forceful tone that suggested he was talking over the caller. "I don't have time to get into that now. I wanna keep this line clear. Just be careful." The phone was replaced on the hook with a plasticky _clack_.

"Someone did the ritual?" Sam asked Bobby eagerly when he returned to the library. "And it worked?"

"Yeah. Got pretty scratched up, but he'll live."

Cass sighed with relief. She didn't know precisely how many hunters had been killed by the Witnesses the first time around, but she was glad that this was something she'd actually managed to change.

"So, is that it?" asked Dean as Bobby returned to his armchair.

"Hard to say," Bobby said, frowning. "The lore's not exactly clear. If the banishing spell is a one-and-done type deal, then it's over. But it might be that the Witnesses have to be banished in each place they appear."

"In which case, they could still turn up at any time," Sam summarized. "And there's no way to tell either way?"

"If we're lucky, that phone call will be the end of it," Bobby said. "If we're less lucky, we'll get another call from someone else who used the spell, and we'll at least have some warning that the Witnesses will be coming for us, too."

"And if we're unlucky, we'll find out when a ghost tries to gank us," Dean finished. "Great. So, what, we just sit around waiting for the phone to ring or for the ghosts to show up?"

"And in the meantime, keep the salt and iron handy."

"Fun."

Cass cleared her throat. "Well, if you want a way to pass the time… I've finally put together everything I can think of that will help us stop the Apocalypse." Cass nodded towards her laptop. "Everything I know about angels, demons, and archangels—strengths, weaknesses, weapons… plus everything I know on the backgrounds and motivations of the forces of Heaven and Hell."

"And what about all the stuff you're leaving out?" Dean challenged, eyebrow raised.

"None of it would be useful," Cass said, grimacing. She wished it weren't the case, but she'd really left very little out. The problem with her knowledge was that it was a television viewer's knowledge, and there were a lot of crucial details she'd never been shown. "If I'm leaving it out, it's mostly because there's no way to get to something right now, or because I just don't have enough information. Believe me, I'd love to tell you how to cure vampires and werewolves, because I _know_ those cures exist, but I don't have the recipes and there's no way to get in touch with the people who do."

"We'll take what we can get," Bobby said quickly, cutting off any further argument.

"It's a good thirty pages of information, at least," Cass said, reaching for her laptop. "I can send you an encrypted file, or if you have a flash drive—"

"How about you just print it?" Bobby interrupted, amused. "You know, on paper?"

Cass blinked, trying to remember if she'd seen a printer anywhere in Bobby's house. She hadn't. "You've got a printer around here?"

"Follow me."

Bobby headed towards the door to the basement. Cass scooped up her laptop with the hand not holding her fire poker and followed him down the stairs. She had never been down here before, and the show hadn't shown it much, either, except for brief glimpses of a mostly unfinished space in scenes which involved Bobby's panic room. Aside from the fact that it contained a panic room, the basement was quite normal: a little musty and dark, with miscellaneous furniture and paint cans stacked around. There was an old, beaten-up desk not too far from the stairs which housed a computer Cass was pretty sure was pre-Y2K, an old dot matrix printer, and a tangled mass of wires. Cass eyed these last two things with deep skepticism.

"I don't know if this is going to work," she warned, setting the laptop and poker down so she could start sorting through the wires. "But I do know it's going to be a pain." She stopped, looking between the printer and the ancient computer hopefully. "If this old thing's already hooked up to the printer, it'd probably be easier to just send it to you electronically and print it from there."

"Probably," Bobby agreed. "Problem is, it's busted."

"Of course it is." Cass sighed. "I don't suppose you've got a working computer that you already know how to connect to this thing?"

"I've only got the one computer, and you're lookin' at it."

Cass managed to suppress her groan, but just barely. "Okay. Okay. I'm… going to need that coffee if I'm going to give this a shot."

"I'll fetch it. I'm not gonna be much use sorting that mess out, anyway."

Bobby tromped back up the stairs, the old wood creaking under his boots with each step. Cass returned her attention to the hopeless tangle of wires and began trying to unknot them. As she worked she could hear more creaks as Bobby crossed the kitchen toward the coffee pot, and beyond that the low, indistinct sounds of Sam and Dean conversing in the library. With a cry of triumph, Cass yanked a single cord free from the mass, then sighed gustily when she recognized it as an HDMI cable, useless for the current situation. One cord down, fifty to go. Cass began to mutter unkind things under her breath about Luddites and wondered aloud how someone with so little technology in his house managed to acquire so many goddamn cords.

Upstairs, the phone rang. Cass jumped at the noise and stared at the ceiling above her, trying to listen through the floorboards. She could make out Bobby's voice, but not his words. It might just be a routine call to one of his law enforcement phones, but Cass doubted it. Nervously, she pulled her fire poker close again and glanced around to see if Bobby had left any salt lying around down here. None was visible lying around, so she began opening the drawers of the desk. She found, impossibly, even more wires, along with a moldy computer manual and a broken mouse, but the bottom drawer finally revealed a carton of salt that a quick shake revealed was at least halfway full.

Bobby came back down the stairs as Cass was shaking the canister of salt. He was carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a shotgun in the other, and he nodded in approval when he caught sight of it.

"Another one?"

"Looks like you'll get to see your first ghost after all."

"Yay." Cass took the coffee from Bobby without enthusiasm and immediately set it down so she could use both hands to carefully pour a circle of salt. Bobby pulled up a chair inside the circle and sat with the shotgun ready.

Cass was tempted to take the entire mass of wires and untangle them in Bobby's nice, safe panic room, or else in the more secure salt circle taped down in the library, but they were still so tangled that they'd be difficult to extract from the desk, and she couldn't exactly carry all the wires and her fire poker at the same time.

She briefly thought about giving up on printing her notes altogether, at least until the Witnesses had been dealt with, but despite her fear she couldn't bring herself to suggest it to Bobby. He and the boys were content to go about their business as usual until the ghosts showed up, and Cass was already jumping at every little noise. She didn't think having a reasonable sense of self-preservation made her a coward, but she'd certainly feel like one if she had to look Bobby in the eye and tell him she'd like to put this off because she was too scared of ghosts to untangle some wires in his basement, even behind a ring of salt, armed with iron and with Bobby and his shotgun full of rock salt at her side.

She could do this. She _would_ do this. She took a fortifying sip of coffee and turned back to the mess of wires.

"Is the hunter who called just now okay?"

"Okay enough."

Cass glanced at him with a frown. "Is that gruff hunter-speak for 'They got a few scratches but they'll live', or do you mean 'They're pretty messed up but they're still alive so we're counting it as a win'?"

"...more towards that second one."

"Not reassuring, Bobby."

"You know how stubborn hunters can be," Bobby said, shaking his head. "I tell 'em ghosts are coming and they oughhta be careful, and they bitch at me for telling 'em how to do their jobs. You heard Dean. Deal with enough ghosts, people start to get complacent."

"I will absolutely never be complacent about ghost attacks."

"Good. It's refreshing to work with someone who doesn't have a death wish."

Cass raised an eyebrow and wondered if that comment was directed at either or both of the men upstairs, but chose not to ask. She turned back to untangling.

Cass finished her coffee before it could get cold, and the jolt of caffeine improved her mood some, though it didn't much help her already frayed nerves. Untangling the wires required too much of her focus for active panic, though, so eventually Cass was able to mostly ignore the fact that ghosts might turn up any moment.

She did not notice the cold at first. It was a basement, so it was cooler than the rest of the house despite the summer heat. But it should _not_ have been so cold that her breath misted in the air.

"Uh, Bobby?"

"Don't leave the circle," he ordered. He'd lifted the shotgun into a ready position, and turned to shout up the stairs, "Sam, Dean! Get that fire going!"

There was a loud crash from the floor above, followed almost immediately by the boom of a shotgun. Cass flinched and dropped the cords in favor of the iron fire poker.

Dean's voice carried down the stairs. "We're on it, Bobby!"

Bobby looked to Cass. "Get ready to run."

Cass nodded, determined. She looked to the staircase, and then she had to swallow a scream.

She had forgotten about the little girls. She remembered that Meg and Henriksen, the FBI agent, had been Witnesses, but she'd forgotten about the creepy little girls. As a viewer Cass hadn't paid much attention to them—they hadn't died in the series and their backstory was never explained, so at the time they were little more than an homage to _The Shining_.

But Cass was definitely paying attention to them now. They were more real than she had expected ghosts to look, more solid. There was nothing transparent about them, and with their pale skin and dirty night gowns and lank hair they looked more like the walking dead than like spirits.

The first little girl spoke, eyes dark. "Are you scared, Bobby?"

The second little girl opened her mouth, but she never got to say whatever creepy message she'd had in mind. With a deafening _boom_ Bobby hit her with a shotgun blast of rock salt, and then quickly shot the first little girl, too. The ghosts dissipated, like they'd never been there in the first place.

Bobby pushed Cass toward the stairs. "Go!"

Cass flew up the stairs two at a time, Bobby following close behind her. At the top of the steps she froze, her fight or flight instinct failing her utterly. In the library, between her and Bobby and the safety of the salt line around the fireplace, stood a familiar figure with short blonde hair. Sam stood facing Meg's ghost, shotgun in hand but not firing. Behind him, Dean was working quickly to build up the fire.

"You killed me," Meg was saying bitterly. "And my little sister, too. She killed herself, you know. After I disappeared for so long, the sight of my broken corpse pushed her over the edge."

Sam looked gutted. "I'm sorry."

"Not sorry enough."

Cass couldn't see Meg's face from the top of the stairs, but the tone of her voice didn't sound promising. She didn't wait to hear more—with a small yelp she chucked her fire poker at Meg's ghost. The iron flew through Meg's head and the spirit vanished as Sam backpedaled to avoid getting an iron poker to the shins. Cass and Bobby rushed across the room and behind the salt line, where Bobby began quickly preparing the already-assembled ingredients for the spell.

"You almost hit me!" Sam looked like he wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh at Cass or scold her. Cass scooped up the fire poker and pointed it at him accusingly.

"And I'd do it again, too. What did I say about trying to reason with the ghosts?!"

Sam ducked his head, lips twitching. "Sorry."

Ingredients prepared, Bobby began to recite the spell. Outside the salt circle, the vengeful witnesses slowly rematerialized. There were the little girls, and Henriksen, and a curly-haired man Cass couldn't recall the name of. Sam and Dean, who had picked up Bobby's discarded shotgun, dispersed each ghost with a blast of salt as soon as they appeared. And then, finally, there was Meg.

She reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, out of shotgun range for either of the Winchesters in their current positions. As Dean cursed and crossed to the very edge of the salt line to get a clear shot, Meg locked her shadowed eyes on Cass.

"You'll die, too. You know that, right?" Cass could have handled it if Meg had sounded angry, but she didn't. She sounded almost _gentle_ , and it made Cass's stomach do a nervous somersault. "Everyone they get close to dies."

And then Meg was gone, banished by Dean's shot, and Bobby tossed the ingredients into the fire. The fire flared blue, and for a moment all four of them held their breath. But the ghosts didn't reappear.

Cass let out a shaky breath and sank back onto the couch, finally allowing the fire poker to drop from her trembling hands.

"I'm gonna make some calls," Bobby said, heading towards the kitchen and his battalion of phones. "See if everyone else is alright."

Cass and the boys nodded. A slightly awkward silence fell in the library.

"I'm… gonna get drunk," Cass decided aloud. She got up on wobbly legs to follow Bobby to the kitchen and procure some whiskey. To her surprise, Dean followed, pulling out three glasses from the cabinets. He caught her questioning look as they returned to the library, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

"What, you really think we're gonna let you get hammered alone? After your first hunt?"

He was oddly chipper about it. Cass didn't know if this precisely counted as a hunt, but she wasn't about to argue definitions with Dean. She shrugged, sat back on the couch, and poured herself a generous glass.

Dean took the bottle from her and poured his own glass, then paused to raise an eyebrow at his brother, who was still standing and looked vaguely disapproving.

"Sam?" Dean waved the bottle at him invitingly. "Come on, don't make us drink alone."

Sam sighed and shook his head, but ultimately smiled and sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Cass. "Fine."

Dean grinned and poured a generous portion of whiskey into the third glass and slid it across the coffee table to him. To Cass, Dean lifted his own glass.

"To surviving your first ghost."

"Cheers," Cass said dryly, clinking her glass with Dean's and Sam's in turn before drinking. She grimaced at the taste. It wasn't good, but it would get her drunk, which she very much wanted to be at that moment. "Suppose it's too much to hope it'll be my last."

"You did well," Sam praised sincerely. "Kept your cool better than I did, for a second there."

"I don't know if screaming and chucking a fire poker across the room really counts as 'keeping my cool'," Cass said, raising an eyebrow at him. Sam ducked his head to take a sip, but Cass caught his smirk before it disappeared behind the glass. She chose to pretend she hadn't seen it. "But I also didn't have to face anyone I knew personally. I was half-afraid I'd see Anna, but I suppose the spell to raise the witnesses only works on human souls."

Sam's smirk quickly disappeared. "Anna's death wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it?" Cass shook her head and voiced the thought that had been in the back of her mind ever since Castiel revealed Anna's fate. "She'd still be alive if I'd never come here. She'd still be living with her parents, blissfully unaware she'd ever been an angel."

"She made her own choice," Sam insisted. "She didn't _have_ to help us."

"We didn't really give her a lot of other options, did we?"

"Alright, alright, enough brooding," Dean interrupted. He leaned forward to top up both of their glasses. "Time for a drinking game."

"Seriously?" Sam looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to be embarrassed _of_ Dean, or _for_ him.

"What?" Dean's voice grew playfully offended. "Some of us never went to college, okay?"

"That's _just_ you, Dean."

The bickering drew a laugh out of Cass, and both brothers looked at her as she smiled and relaxed back into the couch. "Sure, why not? Maybe if I drink enough I'll forget what I just saw."

"That's the spirit." Dean grinned at her and shot a smug look towards Sam, who rolled his eyes but didn't protest further. "The name of the game is 'Never Have I Ever'."

Sam groaned. Dean cheerfully ignored him. "Since you _did_ go to college, I'm betting you already know the rules. So, l'll start. Never have I ever… gone to college."

"Cheap shot." Cass rolled her eyes, but obediently drank, as did Sam. He shot her a curious look.

"Where _did_ you go to college, anyway? I don't think you mentioned it before."

"Georgetown."

Dean perked up a little. "By the _Exorcist_ steps?"

"Yep." Cass smiled and swirled the whiskey around in her glass, admiring the way it caught the light from the dwindling fire. "I even ran up and down them a few times a week."

"Why?" Dean looked vaguely disgusted, and Cass laughed.

"For exercise."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Gross."

"Is it my turn?" Sam asked. Cass shrugged and nodded for him to go ahead. Sam smiled mischievously. "Never have I ever worked for the FBI."

"But you pretend you do _all_ the time!" Cass protested.

"Doesn't count," Dean said, smirking. "Drink."

"Fine." Cass obeyed and then said with an exaggerated sniff of disdain, "Never have I ever falsely pretended to be a federal agent." They drank.

"My turn." Dean smiled easily and pronounced, "Never have I ever lived in an apartment."

"This feels unfair," Cass said after both she and Sam drank. "There's too much normal stuff you haven't done."

Dean shrugged. "Just one of the perks of the life, sweetheart. Sam?"

"Never have I ever…" Sam paused, then looked at Cass as he finished, "pretended to be a psych professor."

"Yeah, ha ha," Cass said sarcastically before drinking. "I weigh half as much as you. If you two keep ganging up on me, I'm gonna be smashed in no time."

"Isn't that kind of the point of a drinking game?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised.

"Well, yeah, but not if I get all sloppy when you two are barely tipsy." Realizing it was once again her turn, Cass said, "Never have I ever had a brother."

Dean leaned forward in his chair to clink glasses with a grinning Sam before they both drank. Dean paused to refill everyone's glasses before waggling his eyebrows at Cass and saying, "Never have I ever had sex with a guy."

Cass rolled her eyes, but drank.

"Never have I ever been to a wedding."

Cass looked at Sam in surprise before she drank. "Seriously?"

Sam wasn't looking at her, instead starting disbelievingly at his brother, who was taking a healthy swig. "Whose wedding did _you_ go to?"

"Dunno." Dean shrugged. "I crashed it."

"Of course you did." Sam shook his head at him, and Cass chuckled, then bit her lip as she tried to think of something else that would get both of them to drink. It was getting more difficult to come up with something with each sip of whiskey she took.

"Never have I ever… hmmm…"

"You could just say never have I ever had sex with a chick," Dean suggested, grinning. "I'd drink to that."

Cass shook her head and said playfully, "You don't know me."

"Oh really?" Dean leaned forward, eyes bright. "This I _gotta_ hear."

"The game's 'Never Have I Ever', Winchester, not 'Truth or Dare'. I don't have to spill my guts to you." Cass smiled, and announced, "Never have I ever dug up a grave."

Dean hid his pout behind his glass of whiskey. Sam took a swig as well, then coughed awkwardly and asked Cass, "Did you and Pamela…"

"Nah," Cass denied, then winked at him. "Not yet, anyway. I _do_ have her number…"

She really should give Pamela a call, Cass realized guiltily. They hadn't talked since before Anna saved Dean. There'd be a lot to catch her up on.

"Never have I ever punched Sam in the face." Dean extended his glass toward Cass after this blatantly untrue pronouncement.

"What? Yes, you have!"

"Heard about that, did you?" Cass clinked her glass against Dean's. "Cheers."

"Great, thanks," Sam said sarcastically.

Cass pat his arm condescendingly. "You're quite welcome, Sam."

Over the course of the game, Sam revealed that he had never put Nair in someone's shampoo, called a car 'Baby', gone to prom, or left the country. Cass had never shot a ghost, hustled pool, or committed credit card fraud. Dean had never had a sexy pillow fight—he had been very disappointed to see that Cass didn't drink to that, mumbling about ruining his idea of college—eaten tofu, or played Dungeons and Dragons. He rolled his eyes hard when Cass and Sam clinked glasses over that last one. Cass was still giggling about it when a truly devious idea occurred to her.

"Never have I ever," she said carefully, "Worn women's clothing."

"What?" Sam furrowed his brow at her, confused, then followed her mischievous gaze to his brother. Dean pointed an accusing finger at her, and Cass noted with delight that his ears had turned pink.

"That's cheating."

Cass raised her eyebrows at him. "Is it, Mr. I-never-punched-Sam-in-the-face?"

"Not that." Dean waved a hand dismissively and then went back to pointing accusingly. "You—you know things you shouldn't!"

"Drink," Cass commanded mercilessly. "Or I'll tell Sam exactly why you should be."

"I _don't_ want to know," Sam said emphatically. Dean, glaring at Cass, drank. Cass was laughing so hard she had to set down her glass before she spilled it all over herself.

"I think I should stop," she said when her chuckles had finally subsided. "I feel sufficiently drunk."

"Sufficiently?" Sam repeated, amused.

"You're not really drunk if you're sayin' 'sufficiently'," Dean argued.

Cass sniffed dramatically. "I'll have you know that I am highly articulate when I'm inebriated." She stood from the couch then, and the coltish swaying movements that got her on her feet proved her words. "I'm going to make nachos. You guys want some?"

Sam eyed her swaying form skeptically. "You sure you should be around a hot stove right now?"

"Shut up, Sam," Dean said with a quelling glare. "She's gonna make _nachos_."

Bobby had retreated upstairs at some point during their game. Cass supposed he'd finished his phone calls and gone to drink whiskey alone in his bedroom in a more dignified manner. Cass flipped on the radio that sat on the window sill next to the coffee maker and smiled, bopping along to the music as she rooted through cupboards for ingredients.

Dean, who along with Sam had followed her into the kitchen, made a low noise of disgust at the music. "Ugh, that's awful."

"Don't touch that dial, Winchester," Cass ordered when he started to cross the room. Dean froze, then whirled to face her in outrage.

"Seriously? It's ABBA!"

"Chef picks the music, mooch shuts his cakehole."

Sam smothered a laugh with a cough, though it wasn't particularly convincing. "Sounds fair to me, Dean."

"Whatever." Dean shook his head, casting disgusted looks at both of them before marching back to the library. "Me and the whiskey will be out here!"

Sam leaned against the kitchen counter, watching as Cass gracelessly preheated the oven and fished out a baking pan.

"You know, it's kinda weird when you quote stuff we never said in front of you," Sam said, clearly thinking of the 'cakehole' comment.

"Yeah, well, it's kinda weird that we fought _ghosts_ earlier."

Sam huffed a laugh. "Fair enough, I guess."

Cass hummed and tapped her foot as she clumsily assembled the nachos on the tray, dumping tortilla chips in a thin layer and then adding beans, cheese, and salsa. " _Waterloo_ ," she sang along, voice low but enthusiastic, " _I was defeated, you won the war_ ~"

"Here." Cass blinked. Sam had appeared at her elbow, and was pressing a cold glass into her hand. "Drink some water."

Cass smiled, amused at the concern, and obeyed. "Thanks."

Sam was still watching her a little warily, even after she'd drained half the glass. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Sam looked unconvinced. "Really, Sam. I'm not that drunk. I mean, I _am_ , but—" Cass shook her head and sighed. "I don't know. I think I just needed this. To let go of everything and do the sort of things I would at home." She slid the tray of nachos in the oven and set a timer for ten minutes.

"This is you feeling at home?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised. "Making drunk nachos and singing along to ABBA?"

" _Everyone_ sings along to ABBA," Cass said seriously. "It's just a matter of whether you're man enough to admit it. But, yeah. This is me. 100% authenticity also includes bad dancing, but I'll spare you."

"Hey, don't let me stop you."

It was like Sam's words were a cue to the universe, because the song that followed ABBA's Waterloo was one of Cass's favorites, a song she could rarely resist dancing to even when stone cold sober. Drunk as she was now, she began to bop and sway and shuffle her way over to Sam, who watched her go with a kind of wary amusement until she slid up beside him and bumped his hip with hers. She held her hands out to him encouragingly and waggled her eyebrows.

"Come on, Sam. You asked for it."

"Uh, no," Sam said, backing away from her. "I don't dance."

"Come onnn, Sam!" Cass reached out and grabbed one of his hands, gently pulling him away from the counter. "Pretend it's the prom you never had. Dance awkwardly with me."

Sam shook his head, but allowed himself to be dragged into the middle of the kitchen. Cass, grinning at her success, danced with even more awkward enthusiasm until a twirl sent her drunkenly stumbling. Sam's hands on her shoulders quickly righted her.

"Whoops." Cass laughed at her own near-tumble, and Sam shook his head, taking her hands properly, though his movements were still not so much dancing as they were standing ready to catch her in case she launched herself at the floor again.

"I've got you."

Cass smiled and tried to use their joined hands to lead Sam in her ridiculous dance. Sam, laughing softly, finally allowed it and began to sway along. "You weren't kidding when you said bad dancing."

"Shut up," Cass said immediately, though she wasn't offended in the slightest. "You're one to talk. Two _giant_ left feet, Sam."

"Hey!" Cass didn't know if the offended look on Sam's face came from the dig at his dancing or the dig at his feet, but either way it was hilarious, and she ducked her head to hide her snickers.

The song ended, replaced by something slower and vaguely familiar. The awkward, energetic dance slowed to a quiet shuffle that really wouldn't have been out of place at prom.

"This is nice," Cass sighed. "I can almost forget we fought murder ghosts."

Sam laughed softly. "You get used to it, after a while."

Cass groaned. "But I don't _want_ to get used to it."

Sam's hands tightened around hers. "You don't have to."

Cass looked up, surprised by the fervor in Sam's voice. She found him watching her with an unreadable expression, and Cass was startled to realize that she was close enough to make out the faint gold ring at the center of his eyes. There was a name for that phenomenon, but she couldn't think of it while he was looking at her like that, so she glanced away, her eyes landing on the radio. With a jolt, she realized that the vaguely familiar song they'd been dancing to was a _love ballad by Elton John_ , and that she had drunkenly waltzed into rather dangerous territory. She was feeling very warm, suddenly, and very aware of her hands in Sam's.

" _I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words_ ," crooned radio Elton John, " _how wonderful life is while you're in the world_."

Cass bit her lip and stared determinedly past Sam's shoulder. Maybe, if she pretended that she and Sam were not having A Moment, then it would go away—because she might be drunk enough that the idea of rising up on her toes and pulling Sam Winchester into a kiss sounded incredibly appealing, but she was _not_ so drunk as to believe that it would be a good idea.

Sam swallowed and cleared his throat. It took a great deal of effort for Cass to resist looking at him, especially when he spoke her name softly and intently. "Cass—"

A loud beeping cut him off. Cass very nearly leaped away from him, scrambling to turn off the oven timer and get the nachos out of the oven. She felt flushed and hoped that any pinkness in her cheeks could be dismissed as a result of the alcohol.

Dean poked his head into the kitchen hopefully. "Nacho time?"

Cass smiled a strained smile. "Nacho time." She dropped the tray onto the kitchen table and crossed the kitchen, trying to ignore the way Sam had frozen in the middle of the floor when they'd parted and now didn't seem to know what to do to himself. Instead she jabbed at the radio, determined to make it stop playing love songs.

It took a few tries. First the Beatles wanted to hold her hand, followed by Johnny Cash falling into a burning ring of fire, and then Jason Mraz proclaiming 'I'm yours'. When at last she found the familiar strains of Back in Black, she sighed in relief.

"Now that's more like it," Dean said approvingly, uncaring of the tension lingering in the room. Then he scooped a nacho into his mouth and groaned. "Holy shit, these are amazing."

Cass smiled at that and sat down, picking up her own handful of food. The Moment was gone. The best thing to do was ignore that it had happened and eat some food to soak up all the whiskey before she embarrassed herself any further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the pining begin! Also, yes, I'm beginning to play fast and loose with canon, and I'm not sorry. I reject Canon Reality and substitute it with my own!
> 
> Also, I intentionally left the irresistibly dancy song ambiguous so y'all can imagine whatever you like, but in my own head it was I Don't Feel Like Dancing by Scissor Sisters.


	13. Ridiculous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a week, huh?

Cass woke the next morning to pain and regret. The sunlight coming in through the window was stabbing past her eyelids like knives, and for a long time she simply laid flat on her back in bed, taking deep breaths until she was certain she wouldn't spew half-digested nachos and whiskey bile all over the floor.

She laid there, and breathed, and mentally replayed the night before.

The terror of facing the Witnesses already felt like it had happened a week ago. The whiskey and her long sleep had dulled the experience, which Cass counted as a silver lining.

The whiskey hadn't even been a bad idea, really—or it wouldn't have been, if she had consumed a reasonable amount of it. But she had far exceeded a reasonable amount of whiskey, made worse by the fact that for a good 24 hours beforehand she had been running on little more than coffee and adrenaline. She'd let the elation of surviving against her first encounter with ghosts cloud her judgment, and then she'd agreed to a drinking game that had gone on for far too long, and then…

Then, she'd almost kissed Sam. It had been a very near thing. If the oven timer hadn't gone off, it probably would have happened.

Sam had squeezed her hands and said her name, and she would have looked back at him to see what he would have to say. Sam would have hesitated, trying to find the right words and put them in the right order, and Cass would have gotten tired of waiting for him to spit it out. She would have risen up onto her toes and pulled Sam down to her level with a gentle tug on the neck, and then—

Cass forced herself to stop picturing the scenario. It wasn't helping.

The problem was that, now that Cass had thought of Sam as someone kissable, she couldn't _un_ think it. Last night, it had felt perfectly natural to tease him and pull him into dancing, knowing that Sam would be patient enough to humor her. She'd enjoyed hearing him laugh, and then they'd had their little moment and she'd realized all at once that the man she was dancing with was incredibly caring, and brave, and stubborn, and that she found those qualities in him to be _incredibly_ attractive.

The problem was that that realization hadn't gone away now that she was sober. She was uncomfortably aware of it now, and on top of that she knew what it felt like to have Sam's steady hands on her and that up close he smelled like soap and clean laundry and something else spicy and masculine that just made her want to lean in and make bad decisions.

Because kissing Sam _would_ be a bad decision, and not just because most of the women who got involved with him had a tendency to die. The reasons not to get involved were almost too numerous to count.

First and foremost were the dozens and dozens of secrets about the future that Cass was still keeping from him. Either the secrets would come between them, or Cass's emotional involvement would cloud her judgment and she'd say something she shouldn't. Then there was the fact that they were already living together, which had the potential to become incredibly awkward incredibly quickly. And then, of course, there was the fact that Cass shouldn't be thinking about kissing anybody when she should be focusing on _stopping the impending Apocalypse_.

They were working together on that, and that was it. Sam was a colleague. Cass did not kiss her colleagues.

She repeated this to herself over and over, and by the time she extricated herself from her tangled sheets, she'd mostly managed to convince herself.

Cass finally descended the stairs in the late morning, once she was sure her stomach had settled enough that she could manage to drink a cup of coffee. She resolutely ignored both Winchesters as she passed through the library. Bobby, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, looked up when she shuffled in and raised his eyebrows at her, amused.

"Mornin', sunshine. How's your hangover?"

"I'm not hung over," Cass lied, though there really wasn't much point in denying it. She was sure she looked terrible, and the scratchiness of her voice didn't help, either.

"Really?" Bobby said lightly, finding his paper. "That's good. I'm off to run some errands, but I thought I might bring back some fixings for a big, greasy breakfast. Bacon, hash browns, lotsa eggs with runny yolks—"

Cass closed her eyes against the bile that rose in her throat at the mere description of food. "Okay, okay, I'm hung over! Please. Have mercy."

Dean poked his head into the kitchen with a wicked grin. "Did someone say eggs and bacon? Count me in."

"Ugh." Cass poured herself a cup of coffee and leveled a dark glare at Dean. "Should've left you in Hell."

Dean laughed outright at that, and Bobby chuckled as Cass rubbed her forehead and muttered uncomplimentary things about hunters and whiskey and sadistic senses of humor. Dean returned to the library and Bobby left, presumably to run the errands he'd mentioned but hopefully not _actually_ intending to fill the house with the smell of eggs and bacon. With the kitchen empty, she chose to sink into a chair at the kitchen table with her coffee rather than facing the Winchesters in the library or mounting the stairs for the long walk back to her room.

Of course, her plan to drink her coffee in solitude was ruined when Sam entered the kitchen a minute later. Cass pointedly did not look up from her coffee or acknowledge his presence in any way, trying to block out the noise of him moving around behind her. Ignoring him might have been a childish response, but Cass was too hungover to be mature.

Sam forced her hand when he slid a plate across the table to her. Cass glanced at it warily, then up at Sam. She managed a slightly pained, self-deprecating smile.

"Dry toast. My hero." Cass pulled the plate closer and took a tiny, hesitant nibble off the corner of the toast. When her stomach did not immediately revolt, she sighed. "Thanks, Sam."

Sam seemed to take that as permission to join her. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat, leaning forward and looking at her cautiously.

"Listen," he began softly. "About last night…"

Cass dropped her toast, her hungover stomach twisting with nerves. _Of course_ he wanted to talk about it. This was Sam fucking Winchester, he _always_ had to talk about it. It was a sign of just how muddled Cass's mind was that she hadn't predicted it, but she hadn't, and she wasn't ready for this conversation. She hadn't showered, her mouth was still sour with the taste of last night's whiskey, and the morning sunlight was catching Sam's eyes in a way that was frankly unfair.

But it didn't look like there'd be any getting out of it, so she braced herself and tried to sound normal as she said, "Yeah?"

"I—uh." Sam sat back a little, hands clenching into fists on the kitchen table. He glanced away from her and cleared his throat, then looked back at her. "I just… I hope you can start to feel more at home here. I know it's not really where you wanna be, but this is your home now, too. You can be yourself."

That… was not what Cass had expected him to say. She _should_ be feeling relieved, and she was, a little bit. But the relief was almost completely overwhelmed by a wave of irrational disappointment.

He wasn't going to talk about The Moment. Sam wanted to talk about _everything_ , especially when it was emotional, or uncomfortable, or both. And that made Cass doubt.

Maybe Sam didn't think there was anything to talk about. Maybe Cass had been drunk and sentimental and reading too much into a little human contact and sappy songs on the radio. Maybe Sam had softly said her name because he was going to urge her to drink some more water so she wouldn't be so goddamn hungover in the morning. Maybe the almost-kiss Cass had been picturing was all in her head, and now she was stuck with a killer headache and an incredibly inconvenient and unrequited crush.

She had been quiet for too long. Sam shifted uncertainly in his chair, and Cass tried to arrange her face into something resembling a smile, or at least some expression that was appropriate for the words he'd just spoken.

"Thanks." Cass swallowed and looked back at the toast on the table, not wanting to make eye contact any longer and risk Sam reading something in her face and asking her what was wrong. "I, uh… I think I'm just gonna take this up to my room. So I can shut the blinds, I mean. Light sensitivity's still a bitch right now."

"Right. Yeah. Feel better."

Cass fled back upstairs, trying to convince herself that what had just happened—or not happened, as it were—was for the best.

* * *

Dean watched Cass high-tail it up the stairs with a nauseous look on her face after the stilted conversation in the kitchen and shook his head in disgust. He found Sam still sitting at the kitchen table, looking morosely at the chair Cass had just vacated

"Dude." Dean folded his arms and frowned disapprovingly at his little brother. "What the hell was that?"

Sam's face closed down a little—never a good sign. "What was what?"

Dean rolled his eyes, not buying Sam's denial for a minute. He jerked his head to indicate the direction Cass had just fled. "You're obviously into her."

"We're just friends, Dean." Sam scowled at him, a clear warning sign for Dean to drop it. Dean ignored it.

"Uh-huh." Dean's tone oozed skepticism. " _You_ didn't see your face last night when she talked about calling Pamela. You looked like you were gonna throw up." And then, ruthlessly, he added, "And just 'cause I didn't interrupt your little dance party in the kitchen last night doesn't mean I didn't _see_ it."

Sam stood abruptly, casting an anxious glance over Dean's shoulder to reassure himself that Cass had already gone upstairs. Despite the fact that she was upstairs and well out of earshot, Sam lowered his voice before he said fiercely, " _Don't_ , Dean. Just… don't."

"Why not?" Dean asked at a normal volume, not ready to back down. "The world is ending. If there's ever been a time to seize the day, this is it."

"This isn't just some hook-up," Sam said, frustrated. "I mean, we live together!"

"So?"

"So, what if she's not interested?" Sam deflated a little, the fight leaving him only to be replaced with self-consciousness. "I just… I don't want to make it weird. More than it already is, anyway."

"She was lookin' pretty cozy in your arms last night," Dean reasoned. And she looked pretty upset just now when she'd run back to her room, but he doubted Sam was able to see that with his head so far up his own ass.

Sam was not impressed with his logic. "She was _drunk_ , Dean."

" _In whiskey veritas_ , Sammy. Besides, that girl literally went to Hell and back for you. You really think she doesn't care?"

"That's different." Sam shook his head. "Just, look—don't push it, okay? We've got more important things to worry about. Like finding Lilith."

"Okay, fine," Dean agreed easily. Sam eyed him warily, rightly suspicious of Dean's quick acquiescence. As he should be. "I won't push it. But I think there's just one little thing you've forgotten."

"And what's that?"

"You," Dean poked his brother in the chest for emphasis, "are utterly hopeless around girls you like."

Sam let out a disbelieving laugh. "What?"

"You heard me. You get all awkward and stiff." Without mercy, Dean began to list off examples. "Remember Sarah, with the evil painting? And Madison? Hell, you even got tongue-tied around _Bela_."

"I'm not _hopeless_ ," Sam insisted stubbornly, though Dean was pleased to note that he was beginning to look a little nervous.

"You keep tellin' yourself that." Dean patted his brother on the arm, smiling a smug, patronizing smile. "See how it works out for you."

* * *

When the dry toast was long gone and the worst of the hangover had passed, Cass thought about calling Pamela. She really should have called her before now, but with everything that had happened lately it had just slipped her mind. But a call to update the psychic who'd helped them was long overdue and, more selfishly, Cass just wanted someone to talk to, someone who wasn't a hunter.

But before she could call Pamela, she had another call to make—one that couldn't be made with a phone, or from inside Bobby's house. Cass stepped out Bobby's back door and into the salvage yard, feeling a little ridiculous as she began to talk out loud.

"Hey, Castiel. I'm not so good at praying, but—" There was a quiet displacement of air, and Cass turned to see Castiel, looking windswept as always but slightly better than when she'd last seen him. "Uh, hi. That was fast."

Castiel tilted his head and assessed her with narrowed eyes. "You look unwell."

The characteristic bluntness startled a laugh out of her. "Thanks," she said dryly, then added, "I'm okay, I'm just a little hungover."

"I can fix that." Castiel stepped forward immediately, raising a hand toward her. Cass dodged it.

"Should you?" Castiel gave her a puzzled frown at the question and she clarified, "I mean, are you okay? You were held prisoner for a while and then immediately laid siege to Hell. Are you alright?"

"I am recovered," Castiel assured her, then added seriously, "And I need your full, uninebriated attention."

That sounded ominous. Reluctantly, Cass stepped forward into arm's reach of the angel, who pressed his palm to her forehead in a way that reminded Cass of having ashes smeared on her forehead on Ash Wednesday, back when she was small and still had faith. Her lingering headache and dehydration vanished, and Cass stepped back from Castiel feeling marginally more ready to hear whatever he had to say.

"Okay, go ahead."

"After the first seal broke I was able to regroup with the few angels I have found who are sympathetic to this cause," Castiel reported in the tone of a soldier reporting to a commander. Then the strength of his tone faltered. "We are… hopelessly outnumbered."

Cass shifted nervously on her feet. "How hopelessly?"

"There are five of us."

Cass grimaced. "And... just how many other angels are there, exactly?"

"A little more than three thousand are still in Heaven. Over six hundred have openly allied with Lucifer." Castiel stared at her expectantly. "I need guidance. What am I meant to do against these odds?"

"I know something that could help." Cass had been thinking about this, and she'd come up with an idea. "But, first—look, Cas, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. You shouldn't just do what I tell you because you think it's God's will. I don't _know_ what God wants. And quite frankly, I don't care."

Castiel flinched a little, then went very still. Cass pressed on.

"He's not _here_. He hasn't been in thousands of years. But I _am_ here, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep the world spinning and prevent the Apocalypse from destroying humanity. Not because God told me to, but because it's the right thing to do. Because we're worth saving, and because I'm not about to let the world burn just so Michael and Lucifer can settle an old score."

Cass heaved a breath and bit her lip as she let that sink in. "So. Are you still with me?"

Castiel's face, which had gone hard as stone during her little tirade, softened a little. "You are not the first Prophet to doubt." The angel shot her a sharp look when Cass opened her mouth, and she swallowed her protest. Castiel went on. "The Lord has _chosen_ you. I won't pretend to know His reasoning. But I have faith that He has a reason for choosing you, now."

She couldn't really say anything to that. She couldn't tell Castiel that she'd spoken to God, that he wasn't doing much more than sitting back and watching the show. Cass still couldn't decide if making her a Prophet was intended to be some kind of gift of protection, or a joke, or just a means of ensuring that Cass would never be able to direct anyone towards his identity as Chuck Shirley. All she knew for sure was that, whatever had been going on in the entity's mind, it was not the welfare of humankind that had motivated the decision. But she couldn't say any of that, even though she dearly wanted to. Not with God's curse hanging over her head.

So instead she asked, "And if I don't have faith?"

"You'll find it," Castiel assured her. "For now, my own will suffice. I am still with you." Castiel straightened, becoming more businesslike. "Now. You said you know something that might help."

Cass nodded. "Follow me." She led Castiel to Bobby's workshop, where she rummaged around for a few minutes. She came across a flashlight in her search and tucked it into her back pocket, just in case, then resumed her search until she found what she'd been initially been looking for.

Castiel frowned at the crowbar when Cass presented it. "I… don't see how that will help."

"You will," Cass said confidently. "Can you take us to Lincoln Springs, Missouri? There should be an abandoned warehouse there, where Downey meets Bond street. We need to go there."

Castiel stepped forward into her personal space and took a firm hold of her arms. Angel flight was different when she was not being possessed, but it was still highly disorienting, and Cass would have stumbled upon landing if Castiel had not been there to steady her.

"Is this the place?"

Cass stepped back to look critically at the building. "I think so." She glanced around, but didn't see anyone out on the street. She gestured for Castiel to follow as she approached the door. "Come on. We're looking for a secret room in the basement."

They entered the warehouse and descended the stairs, Castiel preceding her. In the dark of the basement, Cass flicked on her flashlight and began trailing her fingers over the walls, informing Castiel that they were looking for a draft. Cass found it first and called the angel's attention.

"Here." Cass indicated the space in the wall where she'd felt the draft. "Think you can knock in this wall?"

Castiel did not bother to respond verbally. He pressed his palm against the wall and then stood utterly unaffected as the barrier imploded with a shower of dust. When the wall was gone, Castiel frowned at the ancient-looking stone room that was revealed.

"What is this place?" asked Castiel as Cass stepped carefully over the rubble. "Why are we here?"

"This is one of Lucifer's crypts." Cass shone the beam of her flashlight on the heavy carved stone receptacle in the middle of the room. "That's what we're here for."

Castiel stepped forward to examine the carvings in the stone. "It's warded against angels."

"Now you get to see how the crowbar will help," Cass said. She held the flashlight out to him. "Hold this, please?"

Castiel took the flashlight and held its beam steady so Cass could see what she was doing as she forced the crowbar into the gap between the stone receptacle and its lid, then slowly pried the thing open. The lid slid back with a loud grinding of stone, and Cass stepped forward to withdraw their prize.

"A tablet?" Cass couldn't tell if Castiel was disappointed or not. Perhaps he'd been expecting a more obvious sort of weapon.

"Not just any tablet." Cass angled the thing so it caught the light from the flashlight, illuminating the carvings. "The Angel Tablet. Dictated by God himself."

Castiel stared at it, then moved his gaze to Cass. "I can't read it."

"I probably can." Cass's lips twisted at the idea, and she shook her head. "But that's not why it's important. Possessing the Angel Tablet can make regular angels much more powerful—nearly archangel powerful. _And_ , it disrupts mind control."

"Mind control," Castiel repeated, a line appearing between his brows. Cass smiled bitterly and extended the tablet out towards him.

"Touch it."

Slowly, Castiel reached out and laid a hand on the tablet. The moment his skin brushed the stone he stiffened, going rigid as his eyes went wide. A deeply pained expression crossed his face, and then his eyes cleared and the angel schooled his face. He looked at the tablet with a strange mix of emotions flickering on his face. Cass thought she caught amazement, anger, and, most promisingly, hope.

"Our numbers are not so few after all, then."

Cass pressed the tablet into Castiel's arms, taking the flashlight back from him. "Take it. Use it. But _do not_ let it fall into Michael or Raphael's hands."

"I swear," Castiel promised. As they began to pick their way out of the warehouse, Castiel peered down at the carvings curiously. "Do you know what this tablet contains?"

"Not in detail." Cass shook her head. "There'll be information about angels, and Heaven. Strengths, weaknesses… spells and rituals, too. There are only two things I know are in there for sure: a spell to shut all the angels away in Heaven, and a spell to cast all the angels down from Heaven."

"Dangerous knowledge," Castiel said gravely, but the look he shot her was appraising. "It could be useful."

"I _don't_ want to read that thing," Cass said fiercely. "Not if I don't have to. Not unless there's no other choice."

Castiel tilted his head to the side curiously, squinting at her. He realized aloud, "You're afraid."

Cass shook her head again, not to deny Castiel's words but to express just how much she really did fear what might happen if she tried to read that tablet, or even just if one of the archangels got hold of it. "The only thing I can imagine that would be worse than Michael and Raphael getting their hands on that tablet, is them forcing me to read it."

"If the knowledge itself is truly that powerful, why not read it now?" Castiel pushed the tablet toward her. "Let us use it against them."

Cass stepped back from him, shaking her head yet again. "It's not as simple as reading a book. It might take me weeks or months to decipher it, and that's time we don't have."

Castiel pulled the tablet back towards himself, looking down at it with his jaw clenched in mute frustration. Very reluctantly, Cass offered a suggestion.

"I suppose I could try to make a copy," she said. "Take a rubbing of the surface, and try to read that. I don't know that it would work—I don't know how much of my ability to read it would be tied to the object itself…"

"But you'll try." Castiel's eyes were very bright, and very trusting.

Feeling a little queasy, Cass promised, "I'll try."

* * *

Sam frowned in confusion when Cass re-entered Bobby's house through the front door. "Did you—" He glanced at the back door she'd left through, then back again. "I thought—" He stopped himself, catching sight of the roll of papers in Cass's arms. "What's all that?"

"I went on a little field trip with Cas. Castiel, I mean." Cass held up the papers and said unenthusiastically, "This... is the word of God."

It had been a _very_ awkward trip to the art store. Cass had directed Castiel to take her there so she could get some paper and charcoal, or whatever supplies she would need to do a rubbing of the surface of the tablet. The angel had followed her around, looming over her shoulder with the tablet tucked inside his coat while Cass described to a helpful but very curious middle-aged employee what she was attempting to do. She'd ended up purchasing a few different types of paper, as well as an assortment of charcoal and pencils and other things to get the most detailed copy of the writing on the tablet.

"What," Dean asked with a raised eyebrow, "a burning bush handed that to you?"

"No. I took a tablet from one of Lucifer's crypts. This is just a copy—Cas has the original."

"Lucifer has _crypts_?" Sam sat up straight, eyes wide. "And you _stole_ from one?"

"Yeah, well." Cass shrugged. "If we're lucky, he won't be around to be mad about it."

"What—" Bobby interrupted Sam before he could articulate another question.

"Sam, hush." Bobby jabbed a finger toward Cass. "You. Just explain already, would you? It's exhausting asking you questions."

Cass sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This was all in my notes. I suppose I'll have to try to print them again now that we're not being attacked by ghosts… but anyway. This is a copy of the Angel tablet. It's one of three tablets that contain the word of God. And I don't mean 'word of God as passed through a human prophet'—this is the word of God, as dictated by the entity himself to an angel scribe. The other tablets talk about demons and leviathans, but I don't know where either of those are and I'm frankly not inclined to look for them."

"Leviathan?" Bobby repeated. "Like the Biblical sea monster?"

"Leviathan _s_ ," Cass said, stressing the plural. "They're primordial entities with a basically endless hunger. They're all trapped in Purgatory right now, and unless things go _very_ sideways they should stay that way this time. What's important for you to know now is that the Angel tablet will give Castiel an extra boost of power as he works against the angels who want to start the Apocalypse, and help him disrupt any brainwashing the other angels in Heaven may have undergone." Cass sighed and added, "And, I've taken a rubbing of it, to see if I can translate it and learn anything useful."

"I can take a crack at it, too," Bobby said, standing and gesturing for Cass to unroll the papers. "You know what language it's written in?"

"Uh, Enochian, I think." Cass unrolled the papers on the coffee table, and all three men leaned forward to peer and the symbols rubbed onto the paper. "Angel language. But it wouldn't do any good for you to take a crack at it. The tablets can only be read by a prophet."

"That's convenient," said Dean, glancing up at her. Cass rolled her eyes at his persistent suspicious attitude.

"Look, you're welcome to try to read it," she said. "I won't stop you. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that can, besides the big man himself and the angel who wrote it down. And I'm not even sure that _I'll_ be able to read it without the object itself. But I promised Castiel I'd try."

Bobby sighed and beckoned for Cass to follow him to the basement. "Come on. Your computer's still downstairs. We'll get your notes printed and finish interrogating you later."

* * *

"Run today?"

Sam held his breath as Cass considered him. They hadn't been on a run together since the morning of the day that Uriel had dragged him to Hell. After that had been preparing for the Witnesses, and then yesterday Cass had been too hungover for any sort of physical activity. But now they were both healthy and awake, and Sam found himself wanting to return to their routine. Sure, it would be… distracting, to be alone with her again, but he'd just have to get used to it. He valued his budding friendship with Cass too much to distance himself just because he was attracted to her, and he wanted to extend an olive branch after the tense question-and-answer session from the night before.

After Cass had finally managed to print off her notes, Sam, Dean, and Bobby had all pored over them, reading through the neatly-organized information that Cass had prepared. A lot of it made little sense to them when they read it—names and motivations of angels who wouldn't appear for years yet, or information about artifacts that no one currently knew the location of. Once they'd finished reading, Cass had patiently answered what she could of their questions, often admitting openly that there were a lot of things she simply didn't know. There were still things she wouldn't tell them, things she was holding back on purpose. That frustrated Dean a lot, and Sam couldn't say that it didn't still bother him, either, but he thought he understood where Cass was coming from a little better now.

After all, he'd broken the first seal. Cass had warned them, and done everything she could to prevent the seal from breaking, but Sam had still broken it. If he'd been thinking clearly, he might have tackled Uriel, or aimed for a non-fatal blow—anything but killing him. There was no way to go back and undo that fateful action, but if Cass's silence on certain things was meant to prevent them from making the same kinds of mistakes again…

What it came down to was that Sam trusted her. Cass always seemed to do what she thought was right, even if she knew she'd be yelled at, and even if she was scared out of her wits. She'd helped save Dean, she'd pulled Sam out of Hell herself, and now she was even willing to try to translate the Angel tablet, even though she looked at the rubbings like they were a poisonous viper that was liable to spring up and bite her at any moment.

And now Sam stood, waiting for Cass to accept or deny the invitation. He didn't think he was imagining that it took her a while to respond, but then again, that might have just been his own nerves. Finally she smiled, and nodded.

"Yeah, sure. That'd be nice."

They met outside the front door a few minutes later, and Sam immediately began to doubt the wisdom of the outing when Cass emerged from the house in running shorts, so short they exposed the anti-possession tattoo inked on her inner thigh. Sam swallowed hard and looked determinedly away from Cass as they started running, pretending to admire the scenery.

This was ridiculous. He'd seen Cass in those same shorts before. He'd already _seen_ the tattoo on her thigh. It wasn't like he was unaware that Cass was attractive. She'd turned up in Sam's botched summoning circle in tiny pajama shorts, and her lean, muscular build and tousled curls had been just as apparent then as they were now.

Before, he could ignore it. He was perfectly capable of being _just_ friends with attractive women. He'd done it all the time in college. But now…

It was a lot harder to ignore the physical attraction now that he knew Cass personally. Sam had always had a thing for smart girls, and Cass was _smart_. She was also brave in her own way, and handling being thrown into all this supernatural stuff far better than Sam would have anticipated.

He'd never been in a real relationship with a woman who knew what he did. There had been flings, women he connected with on a hunt and never saw again when he left town, and there had been Jessica. Sam could never picture himself getting involved with another hunter—he worked with his brother and he wouldn't want to change it—but he couldn't imagine dragging a regular person into his life, either. It was why he had never told Jessica anything about it, and when she died Sam had figured he'd never have a chance at love like that again.

But Sam had already dragged Cass into this life, and there was no way to undo it, no way to send her back to her normal life. Even if she'd wanted to build a normal life in this universe, as she'd pointed out to him, she didn't officially exist here. She had no birth certificate, no social security number, no school or medical records—none of the things she'd need if she wanted to live a normal life. And even if she did have those things, Sam doubted that the angels would let a prophet just disappear on them.

Despite all that, Cass hadn't shown the slightest interest in hunting. She was knowledgeable, sure, but cautious. She knew _how_ to fight monsters, but she also had no desire to go out and do it herself. Sam hadn't met a lot of people like that in his years of hunting. Most people who found out about the supernatural either found out the hard way and became hunters, or went back to their normal lives and did their best to ignore the fact that monsters really do exist. Ellen Harvelle had managed to find a kind of balance for a while, running the Roadhouse and helping hunters out while staying out of the hunting business personally.

For a moment, Sam allowed himself to think about what it would be like to come home to the same place, the same _person_ after every hunt, to be able to talk about it openly but never have to worry about putting his loved one in harm's way. And then Sam remembered that Ellen's husband had died on a hunt, and that the Roadhouse had been burned down by demons, and it was only luck that Ellen managed not to burn up with it.

No. That sort of dream was just as unrealistic as the apple-pie life he'd pictured with Jess. It didn't matter if Cass knew about the supernatural. It would only be a matter of time before some monster, some hunt caught up with him.

But it didn't matter, anyway. Just because Cass had forgiven Sam for yanking her into this dimension and was starting to warm up to him didn't mean that she was actually _interested_. She'd certainly seemed that way the other night after the Witnesses, but she'd been drunk, and wired on the thrill of surviving her first hunt, and maybe even just lonely. Sam couldn't blame her for any of that. But he wasn't going to let himself get involved for reasons like that, either. Because, as much as Sam hated to admit it, Dean was right about one thing. Even if Sam wasn't outright _hopeless_ , he had a bad habit of falling too hard, too quickly.

He couldn't let that happen with Cass. He'd keep it professional, for both their sakes. After all, it wasn't like they didn't have other things to focus on.

Sam glanced at Cass, trying to guess if she'd become annoyed with him for ignoring her for so long. With surprise, Sam realized that she hadn't even noticed. Her gaze was distant, skimming over the landscape without really seeing it. Sam waited a few minutes to see if she would snap out of it, but she didn't.

"Cass?" Sam spoke her name quietly, tentatively. Cass blinked rapidly, shaking her head as if to clear it, then looked at him questioningly. "You okay? You looked like you were a million miles away."

"I was," she admitted with a self-deprecating smile. "Sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you."

"No, it's fine," Sam assured her. He hesitated. "You… want to talk about it?"

"No," Cass said firmly. Then, tone lighter, added, "Not now, anyway. Ask me again when we're done?"

"Sure."

They passed the rest of the run mostly in silence, but a companionable one this time. Sam wondered in the back of his mind just what Cass was thinking of that had left her so thoroughly distracted on the run, and once they were back at Bobby's house, sitting on the front porch drinking cold bottles of water, he asked about it.

"So… you still want to talk?"

Cass sighed and started pulling the label off her water bottle. "Yeah, might as well." She looked at Sam and said dryly, "I already know that I'm being ridiculous, but I'll feel better if you confirm it for me."

"You're not ridiculous," Sam said automatically, wondering why Cass thought otherwise.

"You say that now." Cass shook her head. "Before… I just needed to space out this morning. A good run always gets me in this meditative state—my mind is clear and I can just focus on my breath and my body and the next step. And I needed that today, because ever since I came back from fetching the Angel Tablet with Cas, I've been mentally catastrophizing."

Cass smiled bitterly. "Not that that's new, really. I'm an overthinker by nature. Dean accused me of being a control freak, and he's right. I _like_ to be in control. I like to know what's happening. But now everything's spiraling in such a totally different direction from what I've seen that I have no idea what's going to happen next, and the uncertainty is driving me crazy."

"So basically," Sam said slowly, "you're in the same boat as the rest of us."

Cass barked a soft laugh. "Yeah, basically. _Now_ can you admit that I'm being ridiculous?"

"Maybe just a little," Sam said, easing the comment with a smile. "I mean, I get it. This isn't exactly the kind of thing you just get used to. And everything lately… it's a lot, even for us."

"The thing is, I wouldn't be driving myself crazy if I didn't know anything," Cass said tiredly. "If I didn't know anything about the future, then I'd just accept that everything is fucking crazy and try to do my best. But because I know how things played out in one version of events, even though it's a version of events I've _thoroughly_ destroyed, I have this irrational feeling that I should know what's going to happen. I just feel… I don't know. Responsible?"

"You're right," Sam said seriously. "You _are_ being ridiculous." He leaned forward to catch Cass's eyes. She was biting her lip, which was very distracting, but Sam did his best to ignore it. "You're not responsible for whatever happens next. That's just…"

"Ridiculous," Cass finished for him.

"Yeah," he agreed. Cass sighed and looked away from him, still worrying her bottom lip. "Look, even if you _were_ responsible… would it really change anything?"

Cass considered the question, then shrugged. "Just my feelings of guilt if something terrible happens that would never have happened if I hadn't interfered."

"And how would you be feeling if you hadn't interfered?" Sam asked knowingly. Cass took a swig of water and remained stubbornly silent. "Look, you shouldn't drive yourself crazy with all this thinking about what you should have done, or what might happen." Sam huffed a humorless laugh. "Believe me. It doesn't help."

"I suppose you'd know, wouldn't you?" Cass mused aloud. "Well, then, since you're the expert. What _should_ I do?"

"The same thing the rest of us have to do," Sam said with a shrug. "Accept that everything is crazy, and try to do your best."

Cass laughed. "I'll try." She opened her mouth to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. Instead she shot Sam a crooked smile, brushed a swift kiss to Sam's cheek, then patted him on the arm as she announced, "I'm stealing the first shower."

Sam sat frozen on the porch while Cass darted inside, still feeling the warmth of her lips on his cheek and trying very hard not to think about her in the shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did recycle a scene/plot point from my Metatron/OC fic 'Rewrite', and no, I'm not sorry. Also, for those of you who haven't read my other stuff, yes, I have a completed 44K Metatron/OC fic because he's fluffy and cute and I love him.


	14. Hit the Road

Cass felt lighter as she sped up the stairs. Nothing had changed, not really, but she felt better for having aired her irrational thoughts aloud. To her surprise, talking about it _had_ actually seemed to help. Maybe Sam's obnoxious desire to talk about everything wasn't unfounded, after all.

The kiss on the cheek had been an impulse. She wasn't a kiss-y type of person, generally. She didn't even kiss her family on the cheek. Hugs, head scratches, massages, pats on the back—she expressed familial or platonic affection in a lot of ways, but she didn't kiss people _anywhere_ unless she had a romantic interest.

But she couldn't help herself, this time. After laying all her insecurities bare and having Sam accept all her irrational babbling with empathy and understanding, Cass had opened her mouth to thank him, and then remembered the 'no more thank yous or apologies' agreement they'd made. So, instead, she'd pressed a quick peck to his cheek, and then run off to steal the shower before Sam could see the color that rose to her cheeks at her own boldness.

It wouldn't happen again, though. It _couldn't_ happen again. The brief look of wide-eyed surprise on Sam's face at the gesture had been amusing, for sure, but it wouldn't be wise to indulge her silly crush on him any further. Just the brief brush of her lips across his cheek—clean-shaven but already a little rough, warm, offering her the briefest chance to smell his intoxicating scent, sweat and soap and clean air—was dangerous. It was already a memory that would linger in her mind, the start of a number of daydreams that might spiral out of control, if she allowed them to. But she _wouldn't_ allow them. Because if she did, she might be tempted to kiss Sam again.

* * *

Trying to decipher the angel tablet was a pain in the ass. Figuratively, anway. Literally speaking, trying to decipher the angel tablet was a pain in Cass's head, and in her eyes. Trying to make heads or tails of the rubbings she'd made of the inscriptions on the tablet was like trying to read a foreign language she didn't speak while hanging upside down in a car that was driving down a gravel road riddled with potholes. It made her eyes hurt, and her head hurt, and more than a few minutes of it left Cass feeling vaguely motion sick.

She tried. She did her best to look at the letters, willing them to resolve themselves into something that made a lick of sense. She took breaks, looking away and outside the window, trying to come back to the rubbings with a fresh set of eyes, but she could only manage so much in one day.

At last she set the papers aside with a heavy sigh, rubbed her eyes, and pronounced, "I'm going to make dinner."

From across the room, Dean looked up at her skeptically. " _Vegetarian_ dinner?"

Cass shrugged. "Green curry with whatever vegetables I find in the fridge, so yes. I _think_ there's some chicken in there if you wanted to add that, but you'll probably want to cook it yourself. I mean, I don't mind trying, but I haven't cooked meat in like a decade, so—"

"I will cook the chicken," Dean said decisively. He closed his book and stood, looking relieved to have an excuse to get away from research for a while.

Sam looked up from his own book, brows drawing together as he watched the two of them walk toward the kitchen. He offered, a little self-consciously, "Uh… Anything I can do to help?"

Dean snorted. "Yeah—stay out of the kitchen." To Cass, he said frankly, "Sam can't cook."

"What?" Sam crowed in disbelief from the couch, snapping his book shut and standing to follow them into the kitchen. Bobby, wisely, stayed out of it, pretending the conversation wasn't occurring. Or maybe he really was engrossed in whatever Japanese lore volume he was currently perusing. "Dean, I lived on my own for _years_. I know how to cook."

Dean shook his head, clearly not buying his brother's claims. Sam was growing more offended, and Cass smiled at the bickering.

"You really don't have to help, Sam. It's not a big deal." But, since Sam was looking simultaneously stubborn and guilty, and Dean was looking smug, she said, "But you could chop some vegetables, if it'll make you feel better."

Cass dug some vegetables out of the fridge and left them with Sam to wash and chop while Cass started the rice on the stove. It took her a few minutes to wash the rice, add water, and start it on its way to a simmer. With that finished, Cass turned to help Sam with the vegetables—and then froze, watching in mute horror. It took a moment for her to find her voice.

"Uh, Sam?" Sam paused, looking up at her curiously. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Dean did not even try to hide his snicker. He looked at the mess on Sam's cutting board, then to Cass's face, then turned back to cutting up the raw chicken, his shoulders shaking with quiet chuckles. Sam, between Cass's evident dismay and his brother's smug laughter, was looking much less confident.

"Uh… chopping vegetables?" It was a question, not a statement. He looked down at the carrots in front of him uncertainly, then back to Cass. "What?"

Cass shook her head. "It's just… abundantly clear that the majority of your work with knives is stabbing the pointy end into bad guys." She held her hand out for the knife Sam was wielding. "Hand it over."

Dean snickered again. Sam's did not hand over the knife, and his deep frown was now verging on a pout. "I can chop vegetables!"

"Sam," Cass said, voice gentle but uncompromising, "you've only cut up half a carrot so far, and you didn't even peel it first."

Dean snorted. Sam flushed. He looked down at the carrot again, sighed, and then handed the knife to Cass.

"Sorry," he said quietly. When Cass had a firm hold on the knife, Sam backed out of the way and leaned against the counter to watch, his arms folded across his chest self-consciously. "I, uh… never really got the hang of cooking. If it's more involved than boiling water…"

"So I see," Cass said dryly, smiling. Sam's cheeks were still very pink, even as he glared at Dean, who was still smirking but who had regained enough control of himself to resume cutting up the chicken. Cass smothered a laugh and cleared her throat as she withdrew a vegetable peeler from a drawer, drawing Sam's attention. "Here. Lesson one. This is how you peel a carrot…"

Cass demonstrated the technique, and then allowed Sam to peel the rest of the carrots under her supervision while she worked on cleaning green beans and chopping mushrooms. She talked as she worked, explaining why it was best to peel carrots and what you could do with the peels if you wanted to save them. She explained why she cut off the woody bottoms of the mushrooms and pulled off the stems of the green beans, and then demonstrated the correct way to chop an onion, keeping her fingers clear of the knife blade. Sam watched and followed her example and asked questions when appropriate.

It's not that Sam was stupid. If he'd really been interested, he could have been an excellent cook. But Cass could tell he simply didn't care about food at the same level that Dean or Cass did, not enough to really learn how to cook for himself. He wasn't curious about what made a recipe work, or what made certain flavors balance. Still, he listened with enough interest as Cass talked about what was and wasn't edible, and how long different vegetables took to cook, and about the balance of flavors. And in the end, the curry turned out fine.

That was how the four of them passed the next few days. Sam, Dean, and Bobby would do research on Lilith, tracking spells, and the Apocalypse. Cass, meanwhile, would do her best to try to decipher the angel tablet. Progress was incredibly slow and frustrating, and Cass took frequent breaks to make fresh pots of coffee or to cook actual homemade food. Dean, almost as eager to take breaks as Cass was, happily joined her in the kitchen to cook meat to add to whatever vegetarian meals Cass cooked up.

After about five days, Cass deciphered the first words from the rubbings of the angel tablet. Unfortunately, they were utterly unhelpful. After hours of poring over the paper, the first three words had finally resolved into something that made sense: _In the beginning_. The words struck her with all the sudden violence of an icepick between her eyes, and the triumph of making sense of even a small bit of the tablet was immediately diminished by the debilitating migraine that followed.

Cass made her excuses and stumbled up the stairs to turn in early at just past 7 in the evening. She forced herself to change into sleep clothes and brush her teeth, keeping the lights off and leaving her eyes closed as much as possible. As she exited the bathroom, Sam was reaching the top of the stairs. In his hands he held a glass of water and a few pills that Cass recognized as ibuprofen.

"Sam Winchester, you are a saint." Cass strode forward to take the glass and pills gratefully. Sam stared down at her as she did so, looking more than a little wrong-footed.

"Is that— is that my shirt?"

Cass looked down, taking in the soft, cozy flannel she'd long since appropriated. "I don't know." Cass swallowed the pills and took a sip of water, then peered up at Sam with a teasing smile. "I've been using it as a nightgown for a while, now. When do the rules of adverse possession kick in?"

"What?" Sam blinked down at her. It clearly took him a second to remember the term 'adverse possession'. "I-I don't think the legal principle applies to clothing."

The stuttering was cute. Cass wondered if she could inspire more of it with continued teasing. "You gonna take me to court over it, Stanford? I think you'll have a hard time of it. I can't remember—are you wanted by the police right now, or is that just your brother?"

"A-actually, neither." More stuttering. Cass's smile widened. "I'm pretty sure we've both been declared dead."

"You won't have much of a case, then, will you?" Cass pat Sam on the arm and proceeded past him to her bedroom. As fun as the teasing was, it wasn't enough to soften the sharp pain of the migraine. She wanted to sleep it off. "Good night, Sam."

Sam forced out an awkward "Good night", and despite the pain, Cass fell asleep with a small smile on her face.

But of course, the peace couldn't last.

The next afternoon, Dean bounded downstairs to the library with bright eyes, carrying Sam's laptop in his hands. "Pack up, Sammy, I found us a hunt."

"A hunt?" Sam looked up from his book to frown at his brother. "Dean, we're supposed to be working on a way to find Lilith."

"Bobby and Cass are workin' on it," Dean said dismissively. "Come on, Sam, I can only stare at these books for so long. I haven't been on a hunt since I got back!" He forced the laptop in front of Sam's book. "And look, check this out."

"'New strip club staffed by former nuns'?" Sam read aloud, eyebrows climbing high on his forehead. He wrinkled his nose at Dean. "Dude, gross. How is that even a case?"

"All the trainee nuns at this convent under the age of, like, 25 dropped out to be strippers," Dean said insistently, tapping the laptop with more force than was probably good for it. "You don't think that's weird?"

That actually piqued Cass's interest. "Let me see that?" She swiveled around from the other end of the couch, and Sam obligingly turned the screen in her direction so she could read the article over his shoulder. Cass skimmed it with interest for a minute and then decided aloud, "You should go."

"Seriously?" Sam looked betrayed. Dean looked like Christmas had come early.

"I think this might be a seal," Cass explained to Sam, leaning back and removing herself from his personal space, which she'd invaded when she leaned forward to read the article. "Perversions of the natural order, remember? You've got all these women of God dedicating their lives to sin. One or two is a rebellion. A dozen is suspicious."

"See, exactly!" Dean said triumphantly. "Listen to the prophet, Sammy."

"You are way too excited about this," Sam said flatly. He glanced at Cass, his expression half embarrassed, half apologetic.

"You are not excited _enough_ about this," Dean shot back. "I think it evens out." He turned and headed towards the stairs, presumably to go pack his bags. As he ascended, he pumped his fist in the air. "Strip club!"

Once his brother had disappeared up the stairs, Sam sighed tiredly and looked to Cass with trepidation. "You really think this is a seal?"

"Yeah, I do." Cass shrugged. "And even if it isn't, Dean's getting stir-crazy. I don't think it's any use for all four of us to be poring over these books. You two might as well be out hunting. Hell, if it is a seal, you guys might be able to dig up a lead on Lilith."

"Good point." Sam looked back at the laptop, made a face at the article, and closed it with a sigh. "Uh, I guess I'll go… pack." And then he marched up the stairs after his brother, looking more like he was getting ready to face a firing squad than preparing to drive across state lines to investigate a strip club with his brother.

Sam's distaste for the case amused her almost as much as Dean's shameless enthusiasm did. She would admit, if only to herself, that part of her was pleased that Sam would evidently prefer to read books at the opposite end of the couch from Cass than go out and ogle scantily-clad women in sleazy clubs. It only endeared him to her that much more, and for that reason Cass was glad for the case. It would get Sam and Dean on the road again, away from Bobby's house, and give her some much-needed breathing room to focus on interpreting the angel tablet and to try to smother her slowly but steadily growing attraction to Sam.

This was for the best. She knew it. But she _also_ knew she would miss them the moment their ridiculous car disappeared down the road.

"Looks like tonight's your last chance for a homemade meal before you're back to greasy diner food and gas station jerky," Cass said later that afternoon, once the boys had packed their bags and the decision had been made that they would wait until the next morning to hit the road. "You guys want anything special?"

"Pie?" Dean said immediately, not even having to think about it. He raised his eyebrows hopefully at her.

"I mean, I meant for _dinner_ , but I can do that." Cass considered for a moment, thinking about what ingredients they had in the house, and an idea occurred to her. "Do you like pot pie, too? Is pie for dinner and dessert too much, or—"

"There is no such thing as too much pie," Dean interrupted firmly. Cass looked to Sam, in case he wanted to veto that idea. Sam shook his head, clearly already resigned to Dean's unending love for pie.

"Pie and pie it is, then."

Cass set butter on the counter to soften and began poking around for everything else she'd need. She set aside some vegetables for the filling, as well as some leftover chicken that Dean had cooked a few days earlier. She was all set when it came to ingredients, but when it came to bakeware, she came up short. She searched the kitchen three times over, but only found one pie dish.

Cass was sure Bobby owned more than one. He must, because Cass remembered the episode where his late wife returned from the dead and baked enough pies to feed a small army. But she wasn't about to _say_ that to him. Unfortunately, though, Cass couldn't find any more pie dishes, and none of the other bakeware was really suited to what she was trying to do. So, Cass sought Bobby out in the library where he was poring over a thick book of lore and kept her voice deliberately light and casual as she caught his attention.

"Hey, Bobby? Do you happen to have any more pie pans around somewhere?" Bobby looked up at Cass with an unreadable expression on his face. It was neither welcoming nor unwelcoming, and the neutrality of it made Cass more nervous than anything else. Her words sped up, approaching a ramble. "I need two. Or three, ideally. I found one, and I _think_ I can make do a deep baking dish if I have to, but—"

Bobby seemed to make a decision. He stood abruptly and Cass fell silent. "Follow me."

Bobby led her, once more, into the basement of his house. Cass followed him down the stairs nervously, fingers plucking at the edge of her sleeve. Would Bobby be angry that she was digging up old memories? Did Bobby even know that Cass _knew_ that a question like this might be digging up old memories?

The older hunter picked through the accumulated boxes and junk in the basement to a back corner. There were a few large boxes tucked into this corner, packed away more tidily than the other stuff in storage down here.

Bobby paused in front of the boxes for a moment, simply looking at them. Cass didn't look at the expression on his face. She knew these boxes must contain some of his wife's things, or else things that reminded him of his wife, and she didn't want to intrude on whatever thoughts or feelings the sight of the boxes might inspire for him.

Bobby produced a small pocket knife and neatly sliced the tape on one of the boxes. He folded open the cardboard flaps, and Cass saw that the box was entirely filled with kitchen supplies. There were quite a few pie dishes, including a few festively decorated ones, as well as some other bakeware. There were a number of what looked to be KitchenAid mixer attachments, cookie cutters, a rolling pin, and a few aprons.

"That enough for you?"

"More than enough." Cass hesitated, then gently reached into the box to retrieve two pie pans. She also grabbed the rolling pin, another item she'd forgotten she'd need. She paused briefly, but ultimately decided not to take an apron. It was one thing to use Bobby's dead wife's old cookware; it was entirely another to wear her old clothing.

Cass straightened up, dishes and rolling pin in her arms. "Thank you, Bobby."

The words were perhaps a little too emphatic, too sincere. Bobby eyed Cass for a long moment, frowning. By the look, Cass was sure that he knew that she knew about Karen. Should she have mentioned her, after all? Was it better to say nothing, or should she have acknowledged what these boxes meant to Bobby?

Bobby interrupted her overthinking by grabbing an apron from the box and handing it to her without hesitation or fanfare. "Here." He turned his back on her, headed back up the stairs. "Don't want you tracking flour all over the place. It's messy enough as it is."

Cass smiled, and followed Bobby upstairs.

* * *

"Anyone want another slice before I pack this away?" Cass's voice was teasing, and she looked directly at Dean as she asked the question.

The table was laden with empty plates. Cass had cooked three pies, in total. Two were pot pies, one vegetarian and one classic chicken pot pie. The third was a cherry pie, which cooled on the kitchen counter as the four of them ate dinner, filling the kitchen with the sweet smell of cooked cherries and flaky, buttery crust. Dean had shot it longing looks even as he enthusiastically ate two generous helpings of chicken pot pie.

Sam had rolled his eyes at his brother's behavior. Not that he hadn't been a little distracted, himself.

He'd walked into the kitchen when Cass had announced that food was ready, and then stopped short. She had her dark blonde hair swept up into a messy bun, but a few stray curls fell around her face and a single tiny ringlet was at her neck. Her face was flushed pink from the heat of the oven, and the apron she wore, covered in blue and purple flowers, tied at the waist, accentuating her figure unlike any other clothing he'd ever seen her in. Sam was glad that Cass was distracted with pulling pies out of the oven, or he would have been embarrassed by how long he stared.

Now, though, the leftovers of the pot pie had been put away, and the four of them had just finished generous slices of cherry pie. Even Sam, who wasn't much for sweets, had to admit that it had been delicious.

"Yes, please." Cass had been picking up Dean's plate before he even spoke. She raised an eyebrow at Sam and Bobby, who both shook their heads, declining a second helping of cherry pie.

Cass took Dean's plate and her own back to the kitchen counter to cut two more helpings of pie, one far larger than the other. Over her shoulder she asked, "Ice cream?"

"Yes, please," Dean repeated. Then, while Cass's back was still turned, he leaned over to say to Sam in a low, serious voice, "Sammy, if you don't marry that woman, _I_ will."

Sam kicked Dean under the table. Cass, returning to the table with a sliver of pie for herself and a slab or pie for Dean, raised an eyebrow at the commotion, and Dean schooled his face into an innocent expression while Sam fought the flush he could feel rising in his cheeks.

It would be good to get away for a while.

* * *

Getting ready to turn in that night, Cass sat at the open window of her room and offered up a brief prayer to Castiel, as she'd gotten into the habit of doing. Ever since their brief expedition to Hell and the preceding radio silence from Castiel that had marked his time as a prisoner of pro-Apocalypse angels, Cass had finished these prayers with requests that Castiel give her some sort of sign that he'd heard her, and was alright. Castiel's typical response was something between a breeze and a whisper, a quiet rumble of his true angelic voice just loud enough for Cass to hear, but soft enough that it didn't shake Bobby's house.

Cass relayed a quiet summary of her minimal progress on the tablet and Sam and Dean's imminent departure to deal with what they thought was a seal. Then, finished with her update, she said, "Please give me a sign—"

Cass's eyes opened, her brow furrowing. Rather than the hum of Castiel's true voice, she'd heard the quiet _fwoop_ of angel wings. Looking out the window, Cass could see Castiel standing on Bobby's front lawn. He looked up at her expectantly, and Cass, thrown by the change in routine, gestured for him to wait a moment for her to come down.

Why had he come? Was there something they needed to know about this seal? Some other trouble? Cass's heart rate was beginning to speed up as she flew down the stairs.

Sam, Dean, and Bobby were still awake in the library, dressed in their day clothes. Bobby raised an eyebrow at Cass's speed, and at her sleeping attire—another of Sam's ridiculously oversized flannels.

"You goin' somewhere?" He asked as Cass slipped a pair of flip flops onto her feet.

"Cas is outside."

"Castiel?" Sam repeated, and Cass nodded, heading for the door.

"You gotta stop calling him Cas," Dean complained, even as he, Sam, and Bobby rose to follow her out the door. "You're Cass, he's Cas—it's confusing."

"Well, I don't talk in the third person, so if I'm talking about Cas, I mean him," she said. "But you can always call me Holmes if it makes you less confused, Winchester."

She jogged down the front steps and over to Castiel quickly, looking him up and down for any sign of injury. "Hey. Is everything okay?"

"There's no need to be alarmed," Castiel assured her, and Cass relaxed with a sigh. "I came to offer my protection." He turned to address Sam and Dean. "Your help in attempting to stop seals from breaking is welcome, considering our limited numbers. I can hide you from the sight of any angels who might try to stop you."

"The rib thing?" Cass guessed.

"Yes."

"Rib thing?" Dean repeated warily. "What do you mean, _rib_ thing?"

"You know all the sigils in the house that protect you from angels? And how you can't exactly bring them with you when you're on the road?" Cass asked. "Think of it kind of like your anti-possession tattoo."

"But that's a tattoo," Dean said, still suspicious. He eyed Castiel distrustfully. "What are you trying to do to our ribs?"

"I will carve the Enochian warding into your bones."

"No way," Dean said immediately.

"I really recommend that you let him do it, Dean," Cass said, trying to reason with him. "I don't know what might happen if you don't, but it might involve more confrontations with angels like Uriel." Trying to make it sound less intimidating, she added, "And it's not _actually_ like getting a tattoo. It only takes a second."

"Speaking of confrontations," Castiel said, pulling aside his trench coat to withdraw several shining silver blades. "Take these."

"Are those… angel blades?" Sam asked, eying the weapons with interest.

"Yes," Castiel confirmed. "They're effective against both angels and demons. If you are attempting to stop seals from breaking, you'll need them."

" _That_ , l'll take." Dean stepped forward to accept one of the blades. As he took it, Castiel stepped briefly into his personal space and pressed a hand against Dean's ribs. He'd clearly engraved the sigils, because Dean reared back with a cry. "Ow! What the hell, Cas?! No means no!"

Castiel was unaffected by Dean's outrage. He said simply, unapologetically, "I don't take orders from you."

Sam and Bobby both looked to Cass, as if seeking confirmation that they really had to let their ribs become canvases for Castiel's art project. Cass nodded encouragingly at them, and they acquiesced. Sam took an angel blade from Castiel and received the engravings on his ribs with a loud hiss. Bobby accepted his blade and his warding with some dark swearing and an annoyed look. But when Castiel extended a fourth blade towards Cass, she blanched.

"Is that for me?" Cass shook her head, leaning away from the blade. "I don't—I'm not a fighter."

"I'm aware," said Castiel, in a bland tone that was almost offensive. "But you still need a means of defense." When Cass still did not reach out to take the blade, he added bluntly, "If you'd had one when Uriel found you, we would not be in this situation."

Cass flinched, the words like a slap to the face. She remembered Uriel's attack and Sam's still, rapidly cooling body, the emptiness in his eyes. She felt sick at the memory, and the fact that Castiel was right; if she'd had an angel blade, she might have been able to stop Uriel, or at least ward him off.

"That's not fair—" Sam began, stepping forward to glare at Castiel for that comment. Cass shook her head.

"No, he's right." Reluctantly, Cass reached forward to take the angel blade from Castiel's outstretched hand. She was so distracted by her own memories and her distaste for weapons that she forgot to brace herself for the warding. "Mother _fucker!_ _Ow_!"

Dean snickered a little at Cass's reaction, and she glared half-heartedly at him, rubbing her ribs. Castiel regarded Cass solemnly and said, "You will have to be cautious. That warding will hide you from ordinary angels, but it can't hide a Prophet from Archangels if you put yourself in danger."

Cass straightened at that, alarmed. "Are they looking for me?"

"You're not a priority," Castiel said, which wasn't really a 'no'. Then he added, "For now."

"Reassuring," Cass said dryly, remembering too late that Castiel was not yet fluent in sarcasm. Nervously she asked, "You're keeping that tablet safe, right?"

He nodded gravely.

"Good." Cass relaxed a little, then paused, furrowing her brow. "Wait. If I'm warded against angels, will you still be able to hear me if I pray to you?" She couldn't remember how that worked on the show.

"No," said Castiel. "But I have a cell phone."

"The angel has a cell phone." Dean shook his head, glancing at Sam and Bobby. "Our lives, man."

Sam fumbled his phone out of his pocket. "Uh, let me get your number." Sam and Dean exchanged numbers with Castiel. As they did this, Sam paused to frown thoughtfully at Cass. "You don't have a phone yet, do you?"

"No, I don't." Which was weird for her, considering how much she had come to rely on her smart phone by the year 2020.

"I'll set you up with one of our burners before we go," he said decisively. "You could always use the landline, but better to have a cell just in case." He finished typing his and Dean's number into Castiel's flip phone and handed it back to the angel. "There. You've got our numbers, and we've got yours."

Castiel accepted the phone with a nod of thanks. "Good luck with the seals." He stepped back, and Cass could sense that he was about to fly off again.

"Wait, Cas!" He waited, turning questioning blue eyes toward her. "Uh, how are things? How are your numbers?"

"Our numbers are growing, thanks to you," Castiel said with a nod of acknowledgment. He did not look precisely happy, though, and he continued, "Heaven is… divided. Michael and Raphael's deception regarding their intent to start the Apocalypse has undermined their support. The tablet has amplified that impact. Michael is losing more supporters every day."

"Why do I feel like there's a 'but' coming?" asked Dean.

"Because there is," Castiel said bluntly. "For every three angels who defect from Michael's forces, we only gain one soldier. Many angels are leaving Heaven altogether, fleeing the conflict entirely. And more still are choosing to side with Lucifer."

"That's…" Cass couldn't find words. "Not good."

"An understatement," said Castiel gravely.

"How outnumbered are you now, exactly?" Cass remembered when Castiel's allies had numbered in the single digits. He had more now, but would it be enough?

"Michael's troops are now only about two thousand." Castiel now sounded like a military officer, giving a concise report of the battle field. "Our intelligence suggests those supporting Lucifer now number close to one thousand. Our own numbers are around five hundred, and another five hundred have fled or perished."

Cass's fingers tightened on her angel blade. Had it once belonged to a now-perished angel? She didn't want to know. "I'm sorry."

Castiel regarded her with something like impatience. "Don't waste time on regret," he ordered. "Read the tablet." His eyes cut to Sam and Dean. "Stop the seals from breaking." He looked to Bobby. "Find Lilith." Unyielding blue eyes landed back on Cass. "End this before it starts."

A quiet displacement of air, and Castiel was gone. Sam, Dean, and Bobby blinked at the space where the angel had been a second before.

"Bye, then," Dean said sarcastically.

"His, uh…" Cass shrugged. "His people skills are still rusty."

Dean shot her a doubtful look. "Right."

The next morning, Dean was almost aggressively cheerful as he and Sam loaded their bags into the Impala. He was clearly eager to be back on the road again, back to hunting. Cass and Bobby watched from the porch, and Cass couldn't help but feel a little sad and lonely already at their departure.

Sam, bags loaded, walked back to the porch and approached Cass. He produced a cheap, nondescript flip phone from his pocket and presented it to her.

"Here. I've already saved our numbers in there, and Castiel's."

"Thanks." Cass slid the phone into the back pocket of her jeans and bit her lip. "I know I don't have to tell you to be careful, but… well. Be careful."

"We will be," Sam assured her. Lightly, he asked, "Think you can survive a while with no one but Bobby for company?"

Cass laughed and glanced aside, but Bobby had stepped off the porch to talk to Dean. "I think I'll be fine." She turned a teasing smile on Sam. "Now, if I was stuck in a car for hours with nothing but your brother and his endless rock music, _then_ I'd be in trouble." That got a chuckle from Sam, and Cass tried to ignore just how warm that sound made her feel. "I don't know how you stand it."

Sam shrugged. "Years of practice, I guess." His tone was resigned, but his smile was fond.

Behind them, Dean closed the trunk of the Impala. "Alright, Sammy! Time to hit the road."

Sam made a face at the nickname. "Guess this is goodbye."

"For now." Cass hesitated a moment, then gave in and hugged him. It took Sam a moment to react, but then he raised his arms to return the embrace. Cass let herself inhale deeply, trying to memorize the smell of him.

Dean cleared his throat pointedly. Cass pulled away and found him smirking at her and Sam, arms folded, eyebrows raised.

Cass rolled her eyes. "Shut up, asshole, you get one too."

Cass stepped off the porch, and Dean obligingly returned the quick hug she gave him. When she drew back, Dean turned back towards the Impala and called over his shoulder, "See ya round, Sherlock."

"Sher—" Cass groaned. "You are _not_ calling me Sherlock."

Dean grinned at her and opened the driver's side door. "Sure I am."

"I wouldn't fight it, Cass," Sam said wisely as he passed. "The more you hate the nickname, the more he'll use it."

"Sammy's right, Sherlock."

"Just go." Cass folded her arms and glared. "Go away. Good riddance."

Sam and Dean called out their goodbyes to Bobby, closed their doors, and then they were gone, driving down the country lane. Cass and Bobby watched the Impala go, only going back inside the house once the car was no longer in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this chapter on Friday, but I've been sick with a non-pandemic illness for the last week. Fair warning, updates will probably be moving to once every two weeks instead of once a week going forward, because I'm starting the final semester of my Master's program and simply won't have as much time to devote to this story.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, it really makes me happy to see that people are enjoying this story. To Meesh, who asked if I have a face claim for Cass, the answer is no. I prefer to leave the details up to people's imagination. So far I think the only physical descriptions I've given for Cass are pale eyes, curly dark blonde hair, and an athletic body, and that's basically the maximum amount of detail I'm inclined to provide unless it somehow becomes plot-relevant.


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